The Unwavering Wasp

We have two kinds of wasps around here (well, maybe three, if you count white folks who attend the local Methodist Church): paper wasps and mud daubers. The former are social, the latter are solitary. The former build paper nests in out-of-the-way places. We occasionally stumble unknowingly upon their nest, are perceived as a threat to the community, and get nailed. Their sting is very painful. My spouse will get all swollen up and need doses of medicine to recover. I will have the throbbing of the sting stay with me for a couple of days, even though I don’t swell.

Needless to say, we try to be very careful around paper wasps. They seem to know that they are intimidating little critters, because they will buzz you—flying around your head, almost as if they were trying to get you to flee. If you do, they hover in the air in your wake, as if laughing derisively at your timidity. (Ever hear a paper wasp contemptuously laughing? It's a chilling sound that rattles you to your marrow.)

The second type of wasp, the mud dauber, is an interesting and less bullying critter. We have never gotten stung by one, as they are not at all aggressive. The solitary female wasp selects a site for her mud tunnel—well out of the weather, tucked into a cozy spot. She builds a mud tunnel that is about four inches long and a quarter inch in diameter. She stuffs an egg of hers in the end of the tunnel and then captures various insects—spiders, flies, and other soft-bodied creatures—stuns them and seals them in the tunnel, lining up a delectable selection of meals for her baby. When the larva hatches in a couple of weeks, it eats its way down the tunnel, until it reaches the end—and is then ready to venture forth into the world. It bores a hole in the side of the tunnel and flies away—to mate and continue the tunnel-building process.

It is fascinating to watch the prospective mom build the tunnel; its walls are impressively thick. I'm amazed at the size of the load of mud that she can carry to the tunnel site. When she lands, she begins packing the new mud against the wall. As she crams the mud in, she makes a very loud rasping sound that can be heard for a long distance (at least out here in the quiet country).

Each round trip of hers takes several minutes. While she is building the tunnel, she gets extremely focused on her work. She picks a flying route that is the shortest distance from her mud source to her tunnel nest. Then she settles into her routine and begins her dozens of trips to complete the tunnel. As she labors, nothing else in the world exists for her—except if an ignorant human happens to step into her flight path. She will not deviate from that path—she is locked into it and seems so focused as to be unable to make a flight change. If you get in her way she will bash into you, or threaten you menacingly, but virtually never sting.

Last week I watched a mud dauber building her tunnel inside my workshop, along the window frame. I had neglected to close the door for a day or two and she had identified that inside perch as a safe spot for her baby’s birth. I became aware of her presence, as I began working at my bench, when she buzzed my head, on her way toward her tunnel. I then heard her rasping loudly, as she added to her project. I watched her for awhile, puzzled about what to do. If she finished her tunnel, her baby would emerge some day when the door might be shut and it might be trapped for days. Was it better to stop mom now and interfere with her mission, or let her finish and have the baby possibly meet some grim fate later, locked inside the building?

As I pondered my decision, I went outside and closed the door, to see what she would do if denied access. Soon she returned with another load of mud, flew right up to and nearly bashed against the closed door. She flew about in confused circles, continually returning to the door. Had she been much bigger, I think she would have tried butting the door, to get it out of her way. I watched her for a few minutes, as she circled the building and repeatedly came back to the door, as if wondering each time how her path had gotten blocked by something that looked like the wall of the building. I watched, guessing how she might be feeling (as if she had the ability to think about her dilemma). Had she maybe miscalculated her flight, and flown past the opening? She retraced her path and returned, once again frustrated by the closed door. Maybe the opening was farther along? She flew on by the door this time, looking for her opening, to no avail. I shortly left the area—feeling culpable and remorseful for her impasse. I don't know what she ended up doing. She probably simply moved on and tried another location—harboring no resentment.

Life on the homestead often leads to the harm of various critters—sometimes knowingly (I have no qualms about killing flies or house-invading ants) and sometimes ignorantly. Simply by settling down here in the woods, we have become part of a little eco system, that we've partly created and partly disturbed. We help make the lives of some creatures a little more pleasant and the lives of some a little more miserable. Finding the balance is an ongoing meditative experiment.