This is the Black and Yellow Mud-dauber Chalybion (Sceliphon) caementarium. I remember the shiny indigo colored mud-daubers from home in Illinois. It is still so amazing to watch them delicately scrape up portions of mud at just the right water content, form them into little balls that they can carry to their nest sites. When they reach their nest they mold this tiny portion of mud perfectly in a matter of seconds! We have allowed them into our house because...of course they are such magnificent creatures...they never harm us even though they have quite a potent sting!...and of course they create a balance in our wild garden environment. The primary food for their young is spiders. They will create very specifically sized cavities in the mud nest to house paralyzed but not dead spiders. These will provide the nourishment for the larval wasps. If I was aware for even a second that they were collecting our house spiders I would eradicate their nests inside of our house. After many years Carole has accepted that there are certain spiders that live in houses that are extremely benificial! Before I blubber about spiders I want to show you mud-dauber nests inside of our house:
This is an earlier nest in one of our rooms upon the glass cover for an incadescent over-head light. I never counted the many days it took for this lone female wasp to build it but it sure seemed like a really long time to me! Notice that the different colors reflect the various mineral and organic content of the mud that was collected. I watched her collect mud from many of the bog plants that I have that were planted in a sandy clay soil or other pots with a heavy clay loam soil.
The following picture as with the one above in another room of our house reflects hundreds of visits per day of a lonely and fertile mud-dauber wasp to create something that is so precise and functional in it's engineering as to put most of our 4-square efforts to shame!!!
Within these seemingly abstract globs of dried mud are the next generation of a wasp that has survived for millions of years! If for some reason they could not construct them in a certain precise fashion then they would probably cease to exist. We welcome them into our house just so long as they do not collect our house spiders that keep us free of mosquitos, troublesome gnats, and flies. I am not worried about our garden spiders as there is quite an abundance in our garden which is of course a blessing rather than a curse!
I will never resort to saying something as stupid as "Wasps are human too!" but believe me that they are definitely our friends and they are a very important part of the world that sustains us day to day!
Remember one important thing...It is not the current state of our economy that sustains us but it is these fantastic plants and creatures like the mud-dauber wasp that help create a liveable world for all of us!
How does this creature enter and leave the room? Most areas of the country when a wasp could get into the house so could flies and bees and -----Especially, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night protecting myself from mosquitoes.
ReplyDeleteI am sure none of you would approve but most of our screens are removed! That is how the wasps have been entering and leaving perhaps hundreds of times a day. A couple of years ago I noticed that there was a hole in one of the screens through which a clever wasp entered and built its nest on the curtain rod.
ReplyDeleteWe have lived for millions of years without screens...why should it make any difference now? We have a natural garden full of a balance of critters that control almost all of the pests you can imagine except some of the rodents (Rabbits, gophers, mice and rats...although I have heard at least one or owls recently which are naturally the best rodent control!) Cats are absolutely not allowed in this garden as they are a major disturbance to it's ecosystem!!! I will rant about this at another time.
We allow cobweb spiders and jumping spiders into our house. They do a better job than screens and insect sprays do!!! We have an occaisional roach that wonders in from the garage and it instantly becomes Box turtle food! It has been months since I remember a mosquito bite! Whether I am inside or out. Carole has had a couple of flea bites on her legs when we forgot to give Sophie her flea treatment. You may all stand in disbelief but these are OUR facts!
Michael/natureguy