Bee Brethren: The Mud Dauber

At the beginning of the summer, I noticed a mud dauber (this guy ) building a nest under our patio cover. I was a little aprehensive about her being there because, well because look at that thing; she looks like a stinging machine! I could just imagine a nest bursting forth with hundreds of stinging machines later in the year. But it was fascinating to watch her build the nest. She would collect mud and then plaster it into the corner of the patio, building clusters of long, narrow cells. Each day she would add one new cell. Sometimes the cells were capped and sometime open.

Intrigued, I did a little research online to find out if mud daubers have any redeeming qualities; I really don't like killing things if I can help it, but I was a little worried that the wasps might bother the bees, not to mention my friends and family! My research revealed that mud daubers build these cells and then fill them with dead insects to eat later, not baby mud daubers. Another article indicated that honey bees are too big to be a major source of food for them. And since the wasp wasn't the slightest bit interested in me, I decided she could stay. 

I haven't seen her now in months. And until today, when we decided to remove the nest and dissect it, it looked exactly as it had before she disappeared. I sometimes wondered what had happened to her, but not enough to think that the food she put into the nest might not have been for her! Tim carefully cut down the nest and we gingerly cut it open, removing bits of brittle mud plaster to reveal little caches of long-dead spiders and some sort of cocoon. As I started to cut away another chunk of the nest, I heard a violent buzzing and saw something brown and amber colored wiggling around just under where I had made my cut. 

I don't think I've ever moved so fast! I was away from our dissecting table and across the patio in a fraction of a second, screaming my head off like a maniac all the way. (Odd that Tim thinks I'm too jumpy to make a good entomologist.) 

Let me now set the record straight: mud dauber nests are full of baby mud daubers! The mother builds a mud tunnel, fills it with snacks, lays an egg in it, covers the entrance for extra coziness and then makes a get away. The babies grow fat eating the dead insects, spin cocoons and then emerge as full-grown mud daubers. The one that we watched emerge this morning, chewed her way out of the mud tunnel and immediately took flight. She made one circle of the patio and then flew off without so much as a glance back.

Not to worry friends, fascinating as they are, we are not about to get into mud-dauber keeping.