Digger Wasps (Nysson trimaculatus)

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to find Digger Wasps excavating their nest holes on an earth bank in my garden. Their amazing story, is told below. 

The images were all taken with my Nikon D500 with 70-200f4 fitted with Raynox DCR150 macro attachment and Marumi Ringflash.

Digger Wasp emerging from its nest.

Digger wasps are a type of solitary wasp, meaning that a female will make a nest for her own young. This nesting behaviour is different to social wasps, as female social wasps co-operate with their siblings and their mother in the maintenance of a colony that may well contain hundreds or even thousands of workers as well as a queen.

Having chosen a suitable neighborhood, the female starts to excavate.

The general life pattern of a female Digger wasp involves preparing a nest, provisioning it with prey as food for her offspring, laying her eggs and then sealing up the nest. When preparing a nest a female will dig a burrow using spiny brushes on her legs.

The entrance starts to take shape.

This burrow may be up to 30cm deep or more depending on the species. The tunnel usually branches at the end and each branch will have a separate egg laid in it. The energetic cost to the female burrowing so deep is repaid as an advantage to her offspring.

Making progress, she continues to risk 'cave ins' as she works her way down to a depth of 30cms.

The surface of bare ground has a desert-like microclimatic condition. By day the bare ground gets very hot in the sun and at night the surface can cool very fast. By digging a deep tunnel the changes in temperature are less severe and this helps the eggs develop.

The soil begins to fly, as she gets really stuck in to the burrowing.

When an egg hatches the resulting wasp larva eats the prey stored for it in the nest. The prey provisioned to the young will vary depending on the species of Digger wasp and can include bees, aphids, fleas, beetles and nymphs. The female wasp catches prey and paralyses it with her sting. The sting of a female Digger wasp is not used as a defensive mechanism and is used only to paralyse her prey when she is collecting food for her young. Some species of Digger wasp take parental care further and instead of mass provisioning their nests and then abandoning them, the female leaves a single prey item and will return to the nest when the egg hatches with fresh supplies.

Re-surfacing after an exhausting dig.

After feeding on the prey the larvae will pupate and eventually emerges from the nest as an adult wasp. This adult wasp will then look for a mate and if the wasp is a female, she will begin to prepare and provision a nest for its own eggs.

Back into the daylight, this wasp has carried out one of natures truly epic nest builds.

Digger wasps tend to nest in soil, usually in open sandy areas or vertical banks of light soil or sand. In areas of bare ground with several female digger wasps nesting in the same area, nesting holes may be numerous.

Her neighbours nest entrances may be just a few inches away, on this earth bank that forms part of the perimeter of my land.

The females of some species of Digger wasps nest in the same area, forming colonies which may include 50 or 100 nests and extend over several square metres. Different species of Digger wasp have also been known to nest in the same area. Although this is typical across Digger wasps there is some variation between species.

Having completed the dig, she will now lay one egg in each of the two internal chambers.

Not all species of Digger wasp make nests in bare ground, some nest in hollow stems and other similar cavities. Sometimes, Digger wasps also act like the Cuckoo and lay their eggs in other solitary wasp species nesting holes.

Digger Wasps will often try to steal the nest of a neighbour.
Fortunately, this one was at home and managed to 'see off' its potential 'squatter'.

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