Bald faced hornet grubs
Location: New Hampshire
September 13, 2011 1:05 pm
I’ve been watching these grubs fall from the hornets nest all morning. The adults pick them up and fly away with them. Are they next year’s queens?
Signature: Laura
Hi Laura,
We hope our readers know that they can just click on all photos posted after 2009 and get enlargements in a new window. It is a nice feature of our site when it comes to making the information we have to convey even more accessible. We must confess that we don’t know why the larvae are fleeing the nest and the workers are flying away with them. Perhaps the hive is overpopulated and they are culling the grubs. They may instinctively know how to select the most perfect and fecund of the brood while it is still larviform. They may be choosing their heir because the entire nest is basically the mother.
We love your photo. We hope to have some free time in the next month to be able to research the phenomenon it communicates.
I love your site. I love the very accessible one-to-one conversations, it’s like hearing 2 people talking. Today, I saw that you had written about the bald-faced hornets image above, and you said you wanted to research the “phenomenon it communicates”. Well, that phrase really sang to me, and perfectly describes what I try to capture when I take pictures of the forest citizens I encounter. Thank you.
Thanks for the comment Lisa. Alas, with new work schedules, we are having a bit of a problem managing time right now, and this research will need to wait for another day.