Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Beneficial Paper Wasp

By; Tom Berg

Wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, bees – most people don’t like them.  The reason is simple, too.  These insects are capable of delivering a very painful sting, and since they can fly through the air they can chase you!  Some of them, like the various species of hornets and yellow jackets, seem to sting with very little provocation.  But others, like the paper wasps, are relatively non-aggressive.

Paper wasps are social insects, which means they live in specific colonies or nests, and work together for the common survival of the colony.  There are quite a few different species of paper wasps, too.  These wasps are typically a little less than an inch long, and are mostly brown or brownish-black in color.  Most species have thin yellow lines on their bodies, but have much less yellow than seen on yellow jackets.

The nests of paper wasps look like small, gray, circular honeycombs that hang down from a tree branch or under the eaves of a house.  The honeycomb cells point downward, and adult wasps can often be seen hanging upside-down on the honeycomb as they tend the individual cells.  The nest itself is made of a mixture of plant and wood fibers that are mixed with saliva, and when it dries it looks and feels like paper.  Most nests contain only a few dozen individuals or young.

Paper wasps are actually beneficial insects, since they are predators of garden pests like destructive caterpillars, beetle larvae and even other wasp species.  This natural bio-control helps keep pest populations in check.  They are also important pollinators of numerous varieties of flowers and plants, as they feed on the nectar of many different flowers.

As mentioned earlier, paper wasps are usually not aggressive, and will only attack and sting when they or their nests are threatened.  Like many types of wasps, paper wasps can sting repeatedly and their stings are very painful.  So try not to harass them.

One cool fact about paper wasps is that they can secrete a unique chemical that acts as a natural ant repellent.  They apply this repellent around the base of the stalk that their honeycomb nest hangs from to keep ants from entering their nest and stealing their eggs or larva!

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