Mason Wasp

While I was out in the garage yesterday I heard a zzziing noise... I thought, oh, a fly has been caught by a spider.... today I heard the same thing and thought briefly, ooh lucky spider, catching two flies.. but no!
I shone the torch around and found a black wasp thing building a mud nest in a gap under the window sill. When I shone the torch on it, it flew out and zizzed against the windows then zoomed outside.

I went back out there a while later and the beastie had returned with a small portion of dirt in it's mouth. It started zizzing and put a little bit of the dirt around the outside edge of it's little mud house then crawled inside and with more zizzing noises emitting from inside it must have got busy with more of the dirt. It seemed to be having a bit of trouble on the roof area but then the zizzing stopped and it repositioned itself to the outer edge and kept modeling the dirt with more zizzing.

I checked out an insect guide on a website and found that this industrious bug is a mason wasp. A loner who makes a zizzing noise while building... LOL a bit like a builder whistling I suppose.

How hard case that it should find this particular spot to build it's house.
The nest contains rooms and an egg is laid in each and an orbweb spider is left as food for the emerging larva.

The adults feed on pollen...... I wonder how many more of these wasps are building around here?

Yakut

I always think these are very clever little things - but I wish they would go build their nests out in the forest somewhere[}]

They take over the curtains, rifle barrels, scew holes, inside ornaments including my Kauri Snail shells, in fact anything with two surfaces that they can build between. There is even a nest on the flywheel of my milking machine and they go round and round for two hours every day - she even continued to build the nest while it was in motion.

They seem to be very early this year?

Cheers,
Ronnie

they are very cool, though they insist on building nests in our curtains.... which is messy.

heres a pic of a nest we found last year:

Euw Tonic, all those spider bodies! Ugh! I'd never seen one before now and at least it's built it out in the garage, plenty of spiders out there for it.

Yakut

Yes, I'm very familiar with Mason bees.

Since my childhood they have invaded mostly back porches of farm houses I have lived in. Favourite nesting place - in the elbow creases of oilskins or in the folds of the skirt part where they've been hanging up.

and remember that the spiders are paralysed but not dead.... it is a tough life in the wild...

eemmm they are very busy at mine.. and like toast, the oil skin rain coat on the porch is a fav.. also stored horse covers, the riding helmet ( obviously not used enough ).. and yes the curtains..i always feel a bit aweful when i accidently wreck one of their little mud huts by flicking out the coat or whatever,.. all that work..

The mud hut is still at the same stage it was last time I saw it yesterday... I wonder if the wasp got snagged by a bird.... or maybe an orb spider fought back and won?
Which leads me to.... how does a wasp get a spider without getting got itself? Maybe the answer lies in the uncompleted hut.......

So, the spiders in the photo Tonic provided are still alive, just paralised? Morbid! Life in the wild is brutal and cruel. I wonder if the venom used to disable the spiders wears off after a while if the spider doesn't get eaten?

Yakut

i think the wasps sting the spiders to paralyse them. yes the siders were still alive, the odd one would move a little bit.... it is sad, but then the wasp needs to provide fresh food for its larvae... and even spiders need predators to keep them in check.

Yakut;347809 wrote:

Which leads me to.... how does a wasp get a spider without getting got itself?

Yakut

I've seen that in action, the wasp flew in and hovered like a helicopter/hummingbird above the spiders back with the sting curved down and "landed" on the spider sting first, then quickly took off and flew around until the spider slowed down and stopped, like a winding down clockwork toy.

I don't think they land in front of the spider and have a Zorro-ish duel of stinger vs fangs. No such thing as fair play in mother natures lexicon.

I had another look at the hut it was building and it seems to have sealed that one off and started another..... so it must have been at prenatal classes when I checked the first time yesterday.... or out for coffee LOL.

I don't know whether to remove this mud hut or not.... Are these wasps beneficial or are they a ratbag form of wasp.?

Yakut

Don't know .....

I've just discovered I've got them in the garage. I heard the buzzing & can see that they are between strips of wood around the window. Must be that time of year.

Will have to watch out for them setting up house in the horse rugs which hang from on high.

More industrious building going on today. Lots of Zzzzzzing. It seems she's going in for single story units in the Terraced style. ! Our own little Coro Street of a sorts.... maybe I shall call her Ena!

Yakut