Making Paper

[Jeff]

Tom and I ovserved some interesting behavior just outside of the cabin backdoor. A swarm of Bald Faced Hornets had been using one of our Mountain Ash trees as a source for pulp for making paper for thier nest. Its unreal what they have done to this tree and its really, at least to me, a work of art. If this tree eventually succombs to this behavior, I plan on getting it for some sort of project.  Below are some photos and also a link to a movie I made. I was right in with them. Something I would not usually do as most know that bald faced horntets stings are like getting hit with a ball bat, but this was just too cool and them honets were just too busy.


Has anyone else come across anything quite like this?

[isawlogs]

  Jeff , I have seen that here a few times , they had some pin cherry looking awfully like that ...  you sure that is mountain ash in the pic 

[Jeff]

Absolutely. We planted it. It was innitially damaged when one of the boys up to the cabin shot it with a pistol. We staked it up and tied it off and it strengthened and started growing like heck. If you look at the one pic, you can make out the tell-tail orange clusters of fruit from the tree.

[Jeff]

Here is a zoom that shows the leaves and fruit. Your right Marcel though, the trucnk strongly resembles cherry.

[isawlogs]

 
   It would make a nice lamp .... Standing on its branches over in the corner of the cabin behind a rocker .      
   Thats a nice tree , I am going to get me one and plant it on the farm . Do the birds like those fruits .

[Kevin]

That's neat, where's the nest Jeff?

[Jeff]

No clue, they were tailing off through the woods. If I go back up with Pete and Lynda this week, and they are still working that tree, I'll see if I can follow them.

[Don P]

Well doc you see I was chasing these hornets back to their nest...

[mur]

Two of the photos sure look like sapsucker holes to me.  Hornets are for sure grabbing something there though. 

[Kevin]

Could it bee they are after the sap in the tree?

[Jeff]

We were right in close enough to see the wasps clipping out the bark with their front mandibles. There were also other bees there getting sap, but the hornets were harvesting the bark. I couldnt capture it with the camera, although I tried and tried.

[Tom]

I'm sure they were using the sap, but, I think they were also collecting fiber.  These holes are square, not the round hole of a pecking bird.  The hornets were industriously working in the new squares and the squares seemed to be getting bigger.  I think that is the fiber that they are making their nest from.

[jon12345]

I got stung on the leg by one a few yrs ago when I was playin in the woods with my cousin, and it left a huge welt on my leg.  Lately been seein mud wasps here, building long tubes and stocking them with spiders to feed their larvae. It's pretty amazing how big some of the spiders are.

I got stung by a regular wasp the other day and the swelling was pretty bad but finally going down today.  I got stung on the eyelid last summer and almost no reaction, so I think I might be developing an allergy to them

[Onthesauk]

My last house I put up a western red cedar fence around a firewood shed and compost bins, 1" X 6" in 6' lengths.  On the West and South side, (maybe because they were the warmest or most dry,) wasps of some sort came in and peeled off layer after layer of fiber for nests.  The fencing was rough sawed and eventually looked planed.  Probably took off a 1/4 inch over the course of 12 to 14 years.

[SwampDonkey]

The place you'll find that nest will be along the edge of a thicket, where the sun can hit it part of the day. I was thinning a couple years ago and I almost stuck my face in one of their nests and with that Stihl in hand and harnessed to me, you outta have seen a fella swatting hornets and trying to get that quick release (yeah right) undone.  I was lucky with the face shield they never got at my face and I don't think they even stung me, as I was swatting to beat the devil.  But, they didn't want me any closer than 100 feet from that nest. I remember that a skunk or some other night prowler must have got them, because the nest was in shreds a couple days after and everything was calm again.

[jon12345]

Christmas tree farms are havens for hornets and other stinging creatures 

[SwampDonkey]

.....and choke cherry patches along line fences, where my mother always sent me into the abiss for cherries to be used in her jelly. 

[beenthere]

Christmas tree farms are havens for hornets and other stinging creatures 

Any idea why that would be?   

[SwampDonkey]

I dunno beenthere, but I find them alot in fir thickets also. Can't really say they have an affinity to fir trees. I beleive it's more likely you run into them more often in those situations because you are covering almost every square inch of your ground weather it's pruning Christmas* trees are spacing fir and spruce stands for future logs. Sometimes the blasted things will let me walk by them, and I won't notice them, when hanging ribbons and as soon as the brush saw operators come by, they attack. So I get blamed for not marking the nest, even though I never seen the nest nor got attacked.

[Jeff]

While at the cabin I took a few more photos of the Mountain ash and Hornets. They are relentless. I didnt take the time yet to try to find the Hornet nest but I know which direction it is, and its straight through the thickest bunch of tag alders on the place.

[Burlkraft]

Wow Boss.....those are some close pics.....did ya come through unscathed

[SwampDonkey]

I find alot of those mountain ash in old clear cuts. They seem to some back like pin cherry on some sites. Usually alot of softwood present on the sites. The tree sure is getting hammered by the white faced hornets. They do use wood fibre (obviously) to build their nests. I think their saliva binds the fibres. I remember something on 'Nature' about the process. I've got a yellow jacket nest in the woodpile to 'work around'. 

[Jeff]

Yep, unscathed. Those hornets are so busy they don't seem to notice me. I just move slow and respect the fact that any second I could get my butt kicked.

[UNCLEBUCK]

I have those type of bees in my old barn I am fixing , dont see many of such dark color like that but I sat watching knowing about this thread and I watched them all crawl inside a 1/8 inch hole on a 6x6 50 year old post that holds the barn floor up. Got me a tube of black roofing glue and pumped it full in the hole and went about my business .  Last year my cousin was out checking his cows and flipped a old rotten log out of his way and he got covered by these darker colored bees and barely made it home alive .

Anyone wearing suntan lotion preferably with banana scent is like bee bait even around mild honey bee boxes .

[CHARLIE]

Jeff, it's easier to see the nest in the Fall when the leaves are off the trees.  I used to be amazed at the number of hornets nests I would see when I was out in the duck blind in the backwaters of the Mississippi River.  Almost all the hornet's nests I've seen have been hanging from tree limbs. I've seen them as low as about 6 feet off the ground and as high as about 25 feet up in a tree. But once I had a huge hornets nest under my deck stairs hanging under one of the steps about 6 feet off the ground. One year, as I sat in my duck blind, I counted 8 huge hornets nest off in front of me in the woods. Yep, Fall will be the best time for finding that nest.

One Fall, when I lived in Stewartville, Minnesota, I looked out the kitchen window to see a huge hornet nest in the maple tree. It had been hidden by the leaves. I waited until January when the hornets were all sleeping...... .......I took the nest down and tore the paper shell away from it.  Inside are several flat disk stacked on each other with a spindle between them. Kind of like a high rise apartment. Each disk has a couiple of rows of holes around the rim where the eggs are layed. It's quite interesting.