In holes in the ground in
winter-time wasps are found, some with stings, and some without.
Some build cells, small and few in number; others build many and large
ones. The so-called mothers are caught at the change of season, mostly
on elm-trees, while gathering a substance sticky and gumlike. A
large number of mother-wasps are found when in the previous year wasps
have been numerous and the weather rainy; they are captured in
precipitous places, or in vertical clefts in the ground, and they
all appear to be furnished with stings.
42
So much for the habits of wasps.
Anthrenae do not subsist by culling from flowers as bees do, but
for the most part on animal food: for this reason they hover about
dung; for they chase the large flies, and after catching them lop
off their heads and fly away with the rest of the carcases; they are
furthermore fond of sweet fruits. Such is their food. They have also
kings or leaders like bees and wasps; and their leaders are larger
in proportion to themselves than are wasp-kings to wasps or
bee-kings to bees. The anthrena-king, like the wasp-king, lives
indoors. Anthrenae build their nests underground, scraping out the
soil like ants; for neither anthrenae nor wasps go off in swarms as
bees do, but successive layers of young anthrenae keep to the same
habitat, and go on enlarging their nest by scraping out more and
more of soil.
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