page_title: Polistes carnifex
section_title: Nests
hierarchical_section_title: Polistes carnifex / Ecology / Behavior / Nests
caption_attribution_description: English: Polistes carnifex - nest collect in Brazil in 1967 by William Donald Hamilton - stored at the Natural History Museum, London - Collection number 650239
context_page_description: Polistes carnifex is a neotropical vespid wasp in the cosmopolitan genus Polistes, known for its extremely painful and potent sting. The wasp is native to Central and South America. It is a very large yellow and brown paper wasp that establishes small colonies which build nests under the eaves of buildings or suspended from branches. The colonies are founded by solitary queens. Not all nests have a female with developed ovaries. Foraging adults bring nectar and macerated prey back to the nest to feed to the developing larvae which are individually housed in separate cells in the nest. It has mandibles with teeth.
context_section_description: The nest is founded by a solitary queen which builds first cell and then further cells from macerated pulpy material. To create a colony, the queen enlarges a cell by introducing a ball of recently macerated pulp on her own. Using her mandibles, the queen loads the ball while holding the sides of the wall being constructed with her foretarsi. While completing this task, the queen moves her antennae in circles about her head, touching the parallel-lying opposite wall. The antennae-wall contact allows the queen to construct straight sides on the inner wall. She lays eggs and feeds the larvae, feeding them nectar and macerated prey. The female workers that emerge from the first cells then assist with the further building and development of the colony, and can themselves mate and lay eggs.
  Polistes carnifex is a social species and the nests consist of a number of horizontal papery cells in which the young are reared. The nests are built from wood pulp which the wasps chew into a plaster. In a study in Costa Rica, nests were found hanging from branches of various species of low thorny trees near an ephemeral swamp. Nests have been seen under the eaves of buildings. The nests are hanging and open-faced, supported by a single Petiole in the centre which is strengthened by a tough gelatinous material. Of the six nests measured by Corn, the maximum size for a nest of P. carnifex was approximately 9 cm in diameter. One nest in which one emergence at minimum occurred had an average length of 27.8 mm. Nests range in the adult population from 4 to 13 individuals. In one nest studied, there were 28 cells and this number remained constant for the duration of the observation (17 days). There was only one cell observed as being enlarged, which was on the periphery.
caption: Polistes carnifex nest collected in Brazil in 1967 by William Donald Hamilton and stored at the Natural History Museum, London
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