Thinking about raising paper wasps...

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infinite213

infinite213

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I used to catch paper wasp nests when I was a kid and keep them for a couple days but never got further than that. I was thinking about catching a nest and raising them in a 10 gallon tank with some sort of small door rig to get in there with, probably want to use a thick glove when inserting hand :unsure: But just wondering has anyone here attempted this for any length of time? I think it would be awesome!!!

 
Well, you've come to the right place! Orin's Invertebrates Magazine, vols 7&8, 2008, had a series of three, I think, articles on keeping wasps including a number of references to paper wasps (Polistes diminua?), and if you P.M. him, he should be able to sell you the series at a very reasonable rate. His magazine addy is [email protected] and, thank G-d, he now takes Paypal.

 
I catch them here a lot, but have never raised one, so many in the summer, :blink: and yes glove is good idea! Unless u got special friend to help! :tt2:

 
I have been toying with this same idea since late summer. Especially after our yellow jacket trapping experiments.

Everytime I think it through I get really excited. However, I never feel that anything will be quite wasp proof enough that they would not get out.

I would be VERY happy to talk it over and kibitz about it here.

I figured that caterpillars would be easy enough to come by, but also that meal worms would be a fine food source. Though if they will take crickets that would be neat.

How to clean the tank? Does it need to be cleaned?

Having babbled about it with other people, an idea of an air lock type food delivery system, such as 2 linked pvc ball valves has been thrown around.

But my concern still stands around issues of them chewing through:

the pvc

and cocking that seals the pvc

or ultimately, the plastic lip of the aquarium - We have tops that are 100% metal, but the lip is still plastic.

But if we can make it work, then maybe next fall I will collect some Bald Face Hornet Queens as they go to over winter and get them to build in our unused 90 gallon tank.

 
That would be a fascinating projoct!

The only time I have ever been stung by an insect was from a paper wasp. It didn't hurt too bad. I took pics of them too.

9-6-08001.jpg


 
I know of some successful attempts at keeping wasp colonies. The easiest way to do it is to put up boxes in the spring when the queens are emerging and when one starts to build in the box gently remove the nest and hotglue it to the lid of the 10 gallon tank. It works best if there is a door on the lid that you can open to access the tank to feed (caterpillars, squished crickets, other soft bodied insects, honey, and sugar water.

In one of the successful attempts they put coarse construction paper in the tank and the wasps used it to make the nests and they came out looking really cool like they were tie-dyed! But newspaper, reeds, or soft wood can also be used as the pulp to create the nests.

 
hibiscusmile said:
Interesting, I have some that are black with white faces, hummm, could be a decendant of "The Fly" ? :p
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Bald faced hornets. :p

In the spring they are EVERYWHERE here. I never really got farther than a month keeping them, but I did get them set up. I used and upside down critter keeper. I would go out with the nessacary containers, and a spray bottle filled with ice water. A couple quick sprits with it usually stuns the single queen, and a small tap knocks her into the container. I'd cut off the nest, glue it to a corner of a kritter keeper that already had some carboard glued, and I'd be set.

 
Wasps are cute and have cute antennae but their stinger isn't cute especially when they use it on ya, I never got stung but I am careful as can bee (lol see what I did there?)

As for raising them, it'd be an interesting challenge, but I like to handle my pet bugs and take them places to show my friends. They need to be at least portable enough so that when I go on road trips, I can bring them with. A whole colony of flying, stinging, adorable wasps would be too difficult to manage for this, especially if they were to escape while we are driving.

 
Myrmecologist said:
Bald faced hornets. :p

In the spring they are EVERYWHERE here. I never really got farther than a month keeping them, but I did get them set up. I used and upside down critter keeper. I would go out with the nessacary containers, and a spray bottle filled with ice water. A couple quick sprits with it usually stuns the single queen, and a small tap knocks her into the container. I'd cut off the nest, glue it to a corner of a kritter keeper that already had some carboard glued, and I'd be set.
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This is good information.

They did not chew through the critter keeper?

That has been one of our main worries. I had a wasp chew through a ziplock bag in 20 minutes, so I was nervous about plastic. Of course, I had mountain pine beetles defrost and chew out of a plastic bag, so maybe the issue is just bags.

 
Leeann said:
That would be a fascinating projoct!

The only time I have ever been stung by an insect was from a paper wasp. It didn't hurt too bad. I took pics of them too.

9-6-08001.jpg
Click to expand...
sadly, I'm alergic to all bug bites. got bit by a paper wasp once and it hurt so bad. I was just a kid but I remember setting the nest on fire once that happened...sorry bug lovers. I was just a kid.

Harry

 
warpdrive said:
sadly, I'm alergic to all bug bites. got bit by a paper wasp once and it hurt so bad. I was just a kid but I remember setting the nest on fire once that happened...sorry bug lovers. I was just a kid.

Harry
Click to expand...
:2guns: :2guns: :blink: :nuke:

And that was the end of them :eek:

 
What a marvelous idea. It should be straight forward in terms of safety. Your profile mentions snakes (reptiles anyway) I use to keep cobras and one solution was a divided cage with a drop/slide in panel. If you made a vertical cage with an exit at the bottom leading outside Like a bee observation hive. You could use flexible electrical conduit for the tunnel they should chew thru that. Do they hole up for the night?

After dark You could put a slide in to isolate the bottom and the wasps would be above and you could clean.

If you kept the cage covered at night most of the time they would settle down in the evening I would expect. You could of course make the same setup without the exit port.

Now I am intrigued. I hope I havent found another summer project.

good luck let us know what happens

Alex

 

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