2 July 03

It Must Be July

wasp.jpgThe blue-black wasps are all emerging from their larval forms along our roof. They are beautiful and seem quite harmless—but perhaps we’re less concerned about them because we live peacefully alongside bees that get trucked all over California and Nevada in the spring… When they’re here, they’re quite well behaved.

I don’t know the species of this wasp—I’ll add it later if I find it. We are well stocked in this house for looking up names of birds, plants, mammals, dragonflies, butterflies, herps, and marine invertebrates, but not, alas, wasps.

Posted by at 08:25 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. Hi Pica,

    Thanks the other day for the friendly reply. Good to know that there are others out there with similar outlooks. I went ahead and included myself in the wiki. I’m afraid I won’t be able to write up an essay this time around. I’m strapped for time working on a homepage design…

    Maybe I can help about the wasp. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen one (try when I was about 7, in 1967, New York!... I’ve been especially crazy about insects all my life… and Japan is a perfect place for them), but the moment I saw the picture all the memories came back. It’s a blue mud dauber wasp.

    Blue mud dauber,
    Chalybion californicum Saussure
    (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae)

    http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/fieldguide/cimg334.html

    http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/conmag/2002/08/40.htm

    http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_wasps/Palmdart.htm

    I love they way they move, in that elegant, mechanical jerking, with wings vibrating. Their mud nests, that look like earthen wine jugs, are beautiful, too.

    cheers,
    butuki

    — butuki    3. July 2003, 11:17    Link
  2. Butuki: you are awesome, thank you! Yes, the movement of the wasps is incredible. They are so elegant—elegant’s the right word. Like tango dancers.



    — Pica    3. July 2003, 13:37    Link
  3. Tango dancers! What an image! Just imagine, hold still one afternoon and if you listen just right, you might hear the wasps dancing the tango under the steps! Brrrup! Bup! Bup! Bup! Brrrup! Bup! Bup! Bup!... There, the accordion fills in…

    — butuki    3. July 2003, 16:22    Link
  4. They’ve even got the right outfits, too!

    — butuki    3. July 2003, 16:23    Link
  5. And according to those sources, they like to feed on black widow spiders. Good! – We much prefer the wasps under the eaves than the black widows.

    — Numenius    3. July 2003, 17:39    Link
  6. The wasps, emerging:
    a blue-black coupling shimmy.
    Tango dance at dusk.

    — Pica    3. July 2003, 17:41    Link
  7. What is the size range of the Blue Mud Dauber Wasp? Are they aggressive? I babysit for 4 children under the age of 4 years, and don’t know if my front porch is safe!!! Our front deck is enclosed underneath, except for an area of about 4 X 12 inches along a raised planter. I have seen numerous large (2”), shiny black (or blue?) wasps heading under there, one carrying a very large green leaf! Are these mud daubers? As we live in the city and are not particularly fond of stinging insects, how can I be rid of them? I am worried about the safety of the children.

    Thanks for any suggestions or info.
    Lisa

    — Lisa    19. August 2003, 15:16    Link
  8. i live in north central texas
    the blue wasps are here every summer
    i understand they have some effect on the peach borer larvae- is this true ?
    this years peach crop was excellent
    is it because last years blue wasps did a number on the peach borers??

    dan

    — dan    11. July 2004, 12:50    Link
  9. We found out we had a nest of blue wasps, as my husband stepped out the sliding glass door onto the deck! We couldn’t see the nest because it was in the corner above our heads. One step onto the deck and I saw the beautiful blue wasp dive for my husband’s head…he got stung just behind his ear. It got pretty red and swollen and was painful, but no more so than any other wasp or hornet sting we have had. The wasps remained pretty aggressive the rest of the day. Man those things can dive!!
    — dena    26. July 2005, 16:08    Link
  10. we were just playing outside and we saw this big blackesh thing. we ran because we were so scared. then our grandma, helen was teasing and said it was in the house. but what she was it was really in the house. so me kiefer and gabriela ran upstairs as fast as we could. then our grandma got it in the bathroom. but it flew out. finnaly my grandma killed it. we got so close to getting stung!!!!
    — kallee,gabriela,and kiefer tucker    8. August 2006, 09:50    Link
  11. My lawnmower was “dead” for 2 weeks. Four days ago I got it back and mowed in front. While mowing back & forth around my big azalea, a 2” blue-black wasp kept zooming around the mower like he wanted to get inside. Did it sound like the Queen or the hive to him? I had never seen one, and am glad now that when I came back with the wasp spray, it had left. Naure’s beauty spared!
    — Viking    14. August 2006, 13:20    Link

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