Inside A Wasp Nest

The average wasp nest contains between 400 and 1500 insects. Of course, each insect has its own specific role within the colony. Most of their day is spent hunting for food which they bring back to the queen wasp. There are many different types of wasps, and they all have a similar social system. Through the lens of a camera we can see the honeycomb like chambers of a wasp nest that are actually separate rooms.

Inside A Wasp Nest

This is a wasp nest. In the wild, some of these nests are built underground using clay or mud. But you might be most familiar with the paper nests — the ones built out of saliva and pulp, typically found attached to buildings or trees. And these guys can get big. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest wasp nest was 12 feet long and 18 feet all around. Now, we’re all accustomed to avoiding these nests, because, obviously, wasps are scary, but today we’re going to go inside one, because there are a lot of fascinating factors that make these nests work for wasps and their babies. So, let’s cut into one. Pretty easy to cut through this. The hardest part was definitely here at the top, where you can tell the cells are more dense and wider. If I can give you a scale for how big this is, I mean, like, look at it next to my head. This is like a brick cellphone from the ’90s. The key to this type of nest is the pedicel, or the root. It’s the foundation that the entire nest is built off of. These are the cells. Wasps are like butterflies. They’re what’s called holometabolous insects, meaning they go through a metamorphosis before they become adults, and these cells are basically their cribs.

Petrovicheva: The cells are open when they first are produced. The queen will lay their egg in there, and then it’ll get sealed off.

Mills: They’re shaped similar to a hollow cylinder, or like a regular lead school pencil, and there’s a reason why.

Petrovicheva: The walls of the hexagon hold the other cells. Also, they’re a compact space, so you can get a lot of these cells in very, very small space while still having a very strong structure.

Mills: They’re also perfectly sized to fit both the larva and its roommates.

Petrovicheva: Oftentimes there’s some food laid in with the egg, so when it hatches it has the food in there already. The drones move from cell to cell in a circular motion, making sure that each larva has food. Some wasp species tear up insects for the babies, but other wasps take things further. Mason wasps drop off whole caterpillars for their children to eat alive, while tarantula hawk wasps lay their eggs on tarantulas they sting and paralyze as a birthday feast. Other species lay their eggs inside their prey, and once the larvae hatch, they have a meal waiting for them to chew their way out of.

Petrovicheva: Once the larva is ready to metamorphose, it’ll become a pupa inside the cell still, and then it’ll hatch as an adult.

Inside A Wasp Nest

Inside a wasp nest is a world of constant, frenzied activity. The walls are covered in a thick, dark substance that is the product of thousands of insects all working together to create a home. As they work, they constantly fight each other for space and dominance. The queen rules over this chaos, laying eggs and controlling the workers who construct her empire.

The texture of the inside of the nest is rough and sticky, like an old tennis ball or a piece of bubble gum that’s been stepped on by hundreds of people.

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