The subjects of this post are indeed, Vespas.
The weather has become solidly springlike, with daily (nightly) low temperatures in the freeze-proof 40' and 50's (F), and as such, I will be releasing the survivors of last autumn's great Vespa rescue efforts when their little nest beneath our garage's cheap-ass plastic siding was exposed by one of the season's last kick-ass, Ford F-150-destroying, hailstorms...and the day before the siding crew showed up to re-side the entire house, and no-doubt, kill off the stingy little buggers in the process.
I captured the entire bunch by suckering them, one-by-one, onto a honey-baited wooden skewer, except one that flew off before I could get it into the 'Waspatorium' (TM) with the others.
Then, I snapped the anchor stem of the paper hive nest off and placed it in a prominent location in the Waspatorium (TM) so that they might have something in there confinement with them to remind them of perhaps 'better days'.
That was last October, and the little family group of venom-filled-but-lovable paper wasps has been living, for the most part, on our living room coffee table now for the last six and a half months.
In the beginning, there were about fifteen of them in the entire nest group, and I thought that there were only three or four still alive and active of the original grouping, but several days ago, Trixie counted eight or nine of them running around their digs, as if someone had flipped a 'winter's over' switch and simultaneously reactivated all of the remaining cooties.
They've been kept at room temperature all winter, and have been provided food, water, and hiding places, so the ones that haven't survived the luxury of not being frozen to death, probably just preferred to die, and so be it. Unless they are a queen, they aren't really designed to survive a northern winter anyway.
Today, I will be releasing the survivors when the temperature reaches 70 degrees F, probably around 1:00 PM.
Of course, I will chronical the releasing event with photos, so stay tuned.
