[NatureNS] Wasp question

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:43:56 -0300
From: Steve Shaw <srshaw@Dal.Ca>
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Length-cubed), while the lift provided by
Hi Andy:
I talked briefly to our visitor from Germany, just arrived, who works  
in part on bee behaviour, about the question I mentioned recently:  
whether wasps as well as bees have the unusual genetic system with  
haploid males (drones).  She said she believed so for wasps, though  
wasn't sure whether it extended throughout the Hymenoptera to the  
'lower' end of the Order, like sawflies.

It would be good to have some better reference to all this which I  
don't have, but so far it does seem possible that the death event you  
observed was the annual assassination of wasp drones by their own  
workers.  If so, it might have taken place close to the actual nest,  
and perhaps the other wasps were carrying off the corpses by way of  
housekeeping the next day.
Steve, Halifax
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quoting andy dean <aadean@ns.sympatico.ca>:
>     Attention of any budding or professional entyologists in the group.
>
>  One morning recently my wife and I discovered about 50 dead wasps  
> on the garage floor , just inside the door, and attributed it to a  
> natural 'end-of-season' phenomenon....does that seem correct?
>     More bemusing was the fact that whilst we sat with the garage  
> door open, drinking our morning coffee, we twice witnessed a wasp  
> fly in and after examining a corpse lift it and fly off with  
> it.....anybody know what that was all about?
>     It was mind-boggling to realize that the weight of the corpse in  
> relation to the live wasp would have been the equivalent of me  
> lifting my wife bodily off the ground and flying off with her  
> ......a sobering thought !
>
> Andy and Lelia Dean
> 86 Baden Powell Drive
> Kentville, N.S.
> (902) 678-6243


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