A caller recently asked about paper wasps that were making a nest in her house. She wanted to start a building project and these wasps were in her way.

Even less informed than usual, I was at a loss to tell her how to proceed, especially since she was interested in attempting to save the wasps and their nest if possible. She in fact told me this wasp's biological name, Polistes, and started me on what became fascinating research about these misunderstood insects.

The Polistes are a sub-family of an order of insects, Hymenoptera, which includes ants and bees.

The entire life cycle of the Polistes lasts a year, starting with a female who wakes from hybernation in spring and after filling up on flower nectar will set out to build a nest. The nest begins with a slender stem called a "pedicel" and a single round cell into which the female will lay a single egg. She fertilizes this egg as she lays it from male sperm, stored inside her from the previous fall. The nest is literally made of paper, created from dry stems and wood, chewed and shaped. As the female makes six more cells around the first, a distinctive hexagonal shape is formed in the middle, and it is repeated as more and more cells are added. Each cell contains one egg which hatches in two weeks. The larvae that emerge are voracious, and it is for this reason that adult wasps are so keen for meat--they are actually finding food for their young. Polistes mostly seek out other insects for food; their yellow jacket relatives will take whatever they can find.

The female keeps building, laying, and feeding the young until the first group of larvae transform twice more, into pupae and then into adults. These new "worker" wasps then take on the chore of building and feeding. This happens seven or more weeks after the first egg is laid. A mature, late summer nest may contain as many as 250 cells, all side by side and upside down, like an inverted umbrella, a perfect design to keep moisture out. By late summer, the new adults emerge as reproductively complete females, or if they were not inseminated, they emerge as males. The males fertilize the new females who fly off in small groups to seek shelter from the winter, while the original female, the workers and the males die, and the nest eventually fades away like the recyclable house of paper that it is, into the weather. (If this nest is in your attic it will last for some time.)

A most frequent concern about all wasps and bees is their sting. The social wasps and bees have evolved a stinger used just for defense. The stinger can be barbed as in the case of the honeybee, or not barbed, as it is for the Polistes. The Polistes can sting many times and not lose its stinger. It is more docile and does not sting as readily as the bee. When they do get alarmed, though, many members of the nest will attack at once. Though its sting is less painful, it is longer lasting than a bee sting.

Ross Bevier, a local "Boy Scout leader" and beekeeper by hobby who has experience with these wasps, told our caller the unfortunate news that Polistes are very difficult to move. They are determined to stay put and will travel as many as five miles back to their original nest site. Our caller then decided that it was impractical to postpone her work until fall and with regrets she had the nest destroyed.

Even so, it is great that this caller took the time to care and to share her story.