CURSORADR PP@aS
          I WAS AN HONORARY YELLOW JACKET


There is a species of yellow jacket in Europe (including the British Aisles) and the Middle East. It is called Vespula germanica by scientists and Paravespula germanica by purists. It is now introduced in New York State where it is refered to as the "picnic wasp". Although capable of gathering nectar from flowers and hunting flies and grasshoppers, as normal yellow jackets do, it has a penchant to mooch food from people at picnics and in kitchens. Although other yellow jackets so mooch, these turn it into a fine art. Although capable of hibernating under loose bark, V. germanica has a penchant for following folks into buildings, one at a time, and clinging to a curtain near a cold window but safely indoors, for theWinter, and then working their ways to the outdoors again in Spring inspite of beckoning closed windows.
Although capable of enlarging an old moles' burrow for a nesting cavity, V. germanica has a penchant to nest inside hollow walls or even rooms.
With such an affinity for human handouts this wasp benefits well from a gentle disposition. A nasty tendency to sting would quickly wear out their welcome. They have been kept as pets in Britain. Whitness the abandoned nests on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and the write-ups beside them.
In the United States Germanica's place was taken by V. maculifrons, which is more feral and less affined to humans. Both germanica and maculifrons recently speciated off of V. vulgaris, which occurs on both continents. However, germanica hasn't replaced maculifrons but simply divided the niche up with it.
The overwintering individuals are fecundated young queens. These found new colonies in the Spring, without helpers. the new wasps hatched will be workers. By Autumn thousands of workers inhabit a nest. New queens and males are reared at the end of the season. The new queens mate with males usually from other nests, and seek hibernacula. The old queen, workers, and males usually die in late Autumn. Occcasionally the old nest can overwinter in warm climates. This seems to be associated with populations founded by very few individuals, so that all the wasps have the same kin-recognition genes. Thus the young queens don't fight thus preventing the disolution of the old nest. Many of the new queens just join the egg laying force leading to a many queened nest of gigantic proportions. Males and workers occasionally enter hibernation but rarely, if ever, survive it.
Hibernation itself is homologous to a worker behavior of spending the night away from the nest in a stereotyped sleep posture with the wings protected by holding them folded against the sides of the body and under the ventor at the far end, with the legs.
In the late Summer of 1974 I was a graduate student at the University of Sussex in Falmer near Brighton, on the Southern coast of England. I dwelt in the Park Villiage (room 54 A) a housing project-like dorm complex closely resembling the University Halls at Cornell University.
The Sussex Campus closely resembles that of Cornell University, seemingly intentionally, since Sussex University was modeled after American Universities politically, so I suspect an architectural influence may have come along for the ride.
While the new students were ariving for the Autumn semester I found one of my new housemates persuing a yellow jacket in the kitchen with a rolled up newspaper and violent intent.
Keep in mind these wasps are the most common kitchen insects in Britain at this time of year. With sweet gooseberries and red currants costing about the equivalent of 50 cents a pound and no sooner are these out of vogue when sweet white grapes coming along, well its a field day for the wasps. I heard tell of a wasp who over a series of trips hollowed out a glace (Marichino) cherry into a skin, squeezing in throug a crack in the cupboard door. In another kitchen a lady trained them with syrup to enter cracks where cockroaches lived, and the wasps switched from gathering to hunting and ridded the kitchen of the cockroaches.
Once I noticed a little head sticking out of my spoonful of tomato puree and pulled the creature out using my finger- (and thumb- ) nails as forceps and dropped her into a saucepan of room-temperature water for a second and poured the whole into a strainer (I had to act quickly because a wasp can drown in seconds). The still slightly sticky creature cleaned herself on the end of my finger. She rubbed the residue onto her belly then rubbed her belly on my finger. First she ran down to my palm then spiralled her way back to the tip as if she were painting a barbarshop pole!  Later she rubbed the matter onto her wingtips. When she buzzed her wings she got residue on my cornea! Then she flew out the window with much gusto probably never to forage a kitchen again!
Meanwhile back to the student with the newspaper:
I asked him to hold off his onslaught, and in return I ensured that the wasps would be humanely retrained to find what they need elsewhere.
I started by leaving a bottle cap with some treakle (syrup) in it near the honey can they had been investigating. In a few minutes all traces of avaailable honey were gone and they switched to the cap. The bottle cap was similarly emptied in a few more minutes. Next I placed the cap on the outside windowsill and refilled it. When the wasps were quite convinced that the outside windowsill was the only show in town, I closed the window. I then waited a few more minutes as the cap was emptied. I then waited a few more minutes for the wasps to get locked into intense searching behavior, but still near the cap. I then captured them one at a time in a bottle. I took each bottled wasp to the desk in my dorm room, where I has placed a small puddle of treakle on a pane of glass. The bottle had a narrow mouth. I "closed" it by pushing a tube into the bottle so the end was in the midle of the bottle and hard for the wasp to find. The bottle was "openned" by pulling the tube out until the end was in the mouth and thus easy to find. When opening the bottle I ensured that the emergence end of the tube was near the puddle when the wasp appeared, but not so close as to risk an engulfement, but near enough that the scent of the treakle would guide her to a safe landing at the puddle's edge.
I then exitted the room to allow the wasp to finish drink8ing and make an ORIENTATION FLIGHT without interuption from fear caused by my presence.
An orientation flight is a special kind of departure made by bees, wapsps, and possibly other animals, during which they way back is memorized. It is usually performed around food caches, or other resources as well as the nest itself during the maiden flight. Short orientation flights are called olfactory orientation flights and involve memorization of scents. Longer more far ranging orientation flights are called visual orientation flights. These involve the memorization of the locations of landmarks at variious distances from the resource or nest and their geometric relationships to each other.
In order to prevent interuption of the orientation flight by collisions with window panes, the wondows were opened wide and covered with newspaper taped to the panes. Visual orientation flights look like the wasp is flying sidewize in a horizontal figure of eight on the surface of a spheare. The center of the spheare is the location of the nest entrance or resource to which the wasp will return. The spheare increases in size from a few inches to many feet in radius.
Eventually 10 wasps were trained in this manner to my desk. The feeding site was replaced by a gravity feeder, consisting of a quart bottle (wide mouth) in a plastic pan (tofu container) with tooth picks (wooden) wedged under the jar to allow liquid feed to flow. The liquid ran out enough to make a puddle which extended a tiny fraction of an inch around the jar, but the wasps kept it trimmed quite close to the glass.
It appears only 10 wasps had been in the kitchen so I had gotten all of them. The kitchen window was kept shut for some time to prevent other wasps from rediscovering the kitchen.
Early in the period, since training the wasps, I left for work, but had forgotten to turn the light off. Upon comming home in the evening after dark, I found one wasp left in the room buzzing against the light bulb. I had removed the frosty fixture, knowing full well these are death traps for insects. The current situation was better only in that it was a slower acting death trap! A yellow jacket can exhaust her energy and water reserves buzzing against a light. This can lead to her death. Another nasty consequence of this kind of situation is a nearly exhausted yellow jacket can become quite mean. Normally when stinging a yellow jacket will inject a moderate to small dose of venom, but a dying individual will give a large dose. This is extremely nasty. Other stinging insects whose sting is mildly painful will sting painfully in their death throws.
For fear that this wasp might become mean or die, I hastened to rescue her. I positioned a chair under the light and stood on it. When near the bulb my face must have appeared bright against the background of the dark room, since the walls were much farther away. The wasp alighted on my right cheek (please note, since this detail becomes important later.) in a virtical head-up position.
I gently placed my fingers around her and eased her into the ball of my hollow fist, where she remained calmly. Unless agitated, and often even then, a wasp or bee can be caried safely in this manner, provided no pinching, or pulling of extremities (wings, legs, antennae) occurs.
I didn't know for sure where her nest was. I did know, however, that germanica workers allow strangers of their own species to come to their nests and; contribute food, join up, or possibly sleep for the night. "Possible" was good enough for me, since confining a yellow jacket against her will, even in the dark, for a few hours is lethal. In the corner of the next building was a hole in the wall with a germanica nest inside. I visited the hole and opened my fist at one end and allowed the wasp to walk in. She did it so freely that it probably was her nest, but we won't know for years if ever, probably never.
The following night I arived home after dark. I never repeated the mistake of leaving the light on again, but the wasp was waiting on the desk top. All the others had gone home. Upon my turning on the light she comenced flying in circles around the light bulb. I got out the old chair, but before I could completely ascend it, she hovered in front of my right cheek. When I raised my right hand to make a hollow fist around her, she landed on the palm and lined herself up with the "life line" as quickly as possible (the position she would have to assume in the loose fist). I completed the closing of my fist and caried the small passenger to the hole in the wall as on the previous night.
The following night (no. 3) the wasp was waiting on the desk top in the dark as I arived home (just as in night no. 2). This time I was halfway through the door as I turned on the light, and in a fraction of a second she was hovering in front of my face. I presented my loose fist (opened at one end) at eye height. The wasp darted into the hole without hesitation.
As always I took her to the nest.
Every morning I filled the jar. I adjusted the amount to last 24 hours to ensure I would be on hand to refill the jar as soon as the need arose. The refil time was engineered to be 7 a.m. . The wasps showed up at dawn, about 6 a.m. or so and went straight to work finishing the solution that had sat overnight, but it was all gone by seven. If I wasn't up yet they would be hovering over my face buzzing loudly and blowing a downdraft (necessary to sustain being airborne) onto my skin. This awakened me and I filled the jar in the kitchen, to avoid an accident, brought it in inverted and deployed it ready for use with the final act of inserting the toothpick fragments. Then I confidently went off to work knowing they would be all right for the day. The window was closed, but the transum above it was propped open a crack to allow the passage of 10 tiny bodies. Thus even in rain the room stayed dry but the wasps continued to forage. If the Park Village was the University halls, then my workplace was the Vet school, to draw analogies to the Cornell Campus. A road similar to Tower Road took me to the biology building. My ofice was in a parking lot as the biology department had spilled out of its original digs into "terrapins". A terrapin in Britain is a fresh water turtle. Thus a house you carry on your back is a terrapin, i.e. a mobile home that is kept in one place most of the timne, as opposed to a caravan, which is dragged behind a car most of the time. I guess in America one might call a terrapin a camper, recreational vehicle, or simply RV, and a caravan a trailer.
The actual distance was 0.5 miles for the commute.
As August turned to September, and September invevitably turned to October, I dreaded the unavertable onset of cold weather which would kill these 10 creatures who had come to trust me.
At the time I wasn't sure how much they were aware of me as an entity, indeed, for all I knew, I might have been little more than a fancy flower, an acutriment to a flower such as a petal or bract, or landmark.
I wasn't so far gone as to believe that insects are reflex robots. For one thing in the insect physiology course I took as an undergraduate, Dr. Robert L. Patton said that the notion that insects are reflex robots is "a little white lie they tell you in high shool so you won't feel guilty about killing them when the economic incentive arises". Furthermore I was aware of Hilerie Putmann's famous philosophical essay which states that the distinction between an automaton and a being is difficult if not impossible to make.
This is done by imagining a senario in which species B suspects speices A of being mere machines. Species C suspectis species B of the same. Species B-ers attempt to impress the C-ers by showing them their accomplishments, science, art, etc. but the skeptical C-ers retort with mechanistic explanations. Whatever the B-ers say to the C-ers the A-ers say to the B-ers. And whatever the B-ers say back to the A-ers the C-ers say back to the B-ers. By identifying with the B-ers you can take both sides and keep the trialogue going ad infinitum. Additional arguments are made on how mechanical explanations of metal activities could only be empirically verified at best but never analytically proven, but these are hardly necessary after the earlier flurry of logic.
I helped these wasps not because I like wasps, or loved these ones, but because it was the right thing to do at the time, aye the only thing to do. However, they grew on me to the point where I could'nt bear to carry my trusting nightly passenger in my fist to her dying place, which is what the nest might very well become should a hard frost hit, nor could I bear the consequent shortening (though slightly) of her life. So I elected to offer her an alternative sleeping arrangment.
The kind of cardboard boxes toothpaste tubes come in seemed adequate, however the wintergreen employed to flavor toothpaste is toxic and would probably kill a yellow jacket, or at least repel her first. For similar reasons I ensured that the tooth picks in the feeder were plain wood without mint scent added.
In England tomato puree is widely sold in tubes like those toothpaste comes in, and these come in boxes just like toothpaste boxes. So I got a tomato puree box from the kitchen and opened it at one end.
That night when I arrived and the wasp entered my fist, instead of carrying her to the nest, I held the opening of my fist up to the opened end of the box. The wasp entered the box. I watched through the opening!
She climbed the wall of the box and suspended herself from its cieling, like a bat, and went into a deep sleep in a stereotyped position.
I regret I lacked the knowledge I now have. In particular I now know that germanica workers spending the night away from the nest hold their wings under their bodeis with their legs like a hibernating queen. I do not know if this wasp slept with her wings so folded underneath or just against her back as she would have in her nest.
I will seek, to repeat this episode (with a different wasp, of course), or hypnosis or both for an answer, but such episodes in life are often rare treats that will not be repeated, but I will try. However, I digress.
As October progressed the wasp slept nightly in the box. As she hung herself up and froze in the sleep posture, I closed the box securely to prevent predation by mice. I rose at dawn to free her. She foraged to her nest with the other 9, till refill time.
On one morning in particular, it was soon obvious that it was going to be a very hot day, such days are rare in Britain, but are refered to as scorchers in the States where they are more common.
The wasps emptied the remains of the jar in just a few minutes after release time. In hot weather insects can work faster. I knew they would empty the refilled jar quickly, but I didn't know just how quick! I completely filled the jar, instead of the usual half filling, to ensure I would be home on time (before it was emptied). I reckoned if I got home at 5 p.m., instead of after dark, I would surely make it in time.
At noon, my friend, Claudio Stern, came knocking at my office door. We had offices in the same terrapin. He invited me to lunch. We would check our "pigeon holes" (alphabetized cubby holes where mail was delivered twice a day) for whatever goodies, usually reprint requests, the World had to offer us, then go to the cafeteria and gab theoretical biology. Claudio is a brilliant biologist, a renowned baroque musician, and a great conversationalist. He and I were planning a paper together on oncogene evolution, though the theory I was proposing was so radical that Claudio eventually bowed out to save his relationship with his advisor, thought he secretly supported it! Anyway I was loooking forward to hanging out with Claudio. No sooner did we open the door at the end of the corridor, where I hesitated for an instant preparing to descend some steps leading to ground level, when I was beset by a cloud of Vespula germanica workers.
One of them landed on my cheek (the right one) in a head-up position. Naturally I was reminded of the rescue event at the light and puzzled in my mind if these were my wasps come to fetch me.
I had read Schaefer's THE WAYS OF THE MUD DAUBER in which mud wasps he had fed regularly found him in novel locations when hungry, and Karl von Frisch's THE DANCE LANGUAGE AND ORIENTATION OF BEES in which procedures for training honey bees to feeders are described. The reader is admonished to rotate the technicians who staff various feeding stations lest the bees get fixated on particular people (and find them in town in crowded situations) rather than particular stations. Norman Lin (personal communication) fed a cicada killer wasp as she emerged from her cocoon, on a white sweet grape that had been broken open. For the rest of her life this wasp found Norman in town or in the field for licks on grapes rathr than visiting flowers.
Thus the notion that the wasps might find me or recruite me much as they might a nestmate wasn't too wierd. What was wierd was that one of them would resort to a behavior reminiscent of a common past event to harken my memories and thus facilitate recognition. I expectied such behavior from Northumbrian maidens but not from yellow jackets! Though curious to verify they phenominon which appeared to be unfolding, I also wanted some additional verification before forgoing lunch with Claudio.
I asked Claudio to count the wasps. He stood for a long while silently counting. He raised his hand to face level in a loose fist with his index finger extended but slightly curled. He bobbed his hand up and down with a slight jerk to register adding one to his total each time. His hand jerked far more than ten times! I was loosing hope of varification but gaining hope of hanging out, when he finally stopped. Claudio said "Of course it is hard to count them because of the risk of counting the same one twice, since they are moving around so much, however I counted them three times [thus the time spent] and I got ten all three times."
I answered "I'm sorry Claudio, but I must ask for a rain check."
"Why" he enquired.
"I'll explain it later, when I'm sure I know why myself." I replied and started off home.
Claudio knew nothing about my relationship with the wasps. Indeed I saw nothing extraordinary about it till after this moment and it was quite private. I hadn't discussed it with anyone. Certainly if Claudio was trying to tease me, and even if the neighbors did know of the wasps situation back in the dorm, how would they know there were TEN wasps?
As I started home the wasps' cloud stayed near my head but always centered around an imaginary line between me and my room. If I couldn't travel as the crow flies, as when circumnavigating buildings and fences, they still indicated the direction as the crow flies anyway. This is similar to what honey bees do when sending recruits to a goal behind a mountain, even though they will have to fly in various directions when circumnavigating it.
As I made the final approach, due to a thorn bush, I would have to pass my window (rather than enter it as the wasp's lead suggested), go another 20 or so feet, make a "U" turn, come in through the front door, pass through a vestibule, turn right, and open my door and enter the room.
As I passed my window, the wasps moved straight toward it and disappeared frm view. Upon entering my room I approached the desk and saw the wasps hovering over the tray with the bootle in its midst. The bottle the tray, the toothpick fragments -- the whole feeder was bone dry!