Bald-faced Hornet Queens Soon To Emerge From Hibernation
Bald-faced Hornets (Dolichovespula maculata) are a species of wasp, named for the white (“bald”) markings on their heads. Known for their large, hanging paper nests, most of these insects have a relatively short life – no longer than the span of a summer. Four to seven hundred hornets, mostly female workers in addition to one queen, occupy the nest all summer.
Come late summer/early fall the sole egg-laying queen begins to lay eggs that become drones (males) and new queens. When mature, these fertile males and queens fly off to mate. The drones and the female workers in the nest then die; the old queen, if not killed by workers, dies with them around mid-autumn. The fertilized young queens hibernate over winter in rotting logs, under bark and in crevices, and start new colonies in the spring of the following year. A recent exploration of a rotting log revealed that bald-faced hornet queens are not active yet, but soon will be. (Photo: Bald-faced Hornet queen)
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Woolly Bears Awake, Feeding & Soon To Pupate
Isabella Tiger Moths (we call their larvae Woolly Bears) are one of the few moths or butterflies that overwinter as caterpillars. In the fall they produce a chemical which acts like anti-freeze and protects them against damage from freezing and thawing. The caterpillars remain curled up in a protected spot, such as in leaf litter or under loose bark, nearly frozen solid all winter.
When spring arrives and the temperature reaches the high 40’s and 50’s they become active again, feed for a few days, and then pupate inside a cocoon made with their own bristles. Adult Isabella Tiger Moths emerge in about a month, anywhere between April and June, mate, and lay eggs. Within two weeks the eggs hatch. In New England a second generation of woolly bears will be produced and these are the larvae that overwinter.
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Snow Flies Appearing
It always comes as a surprise to see tiny creatures moving nimbly over the surface of the snow. However, there are quite a few insects and spiders that do, thanks to the glycerol that they produce in their body fluids that keep them from freezing. The Snow Fly (Chionea sp.) is a type of wingless crane fly. Most likely its lack of wings is due to the fact that at sub-freezing temperatures it would be very hard to generate enough energy for maintaining flight muscles. They (along with other flies, mosquitoes and gnats) do have two vestigial wings called halteres, the little knobs on the fly’s thorax. They inform true flies about the rotation of their body during flight, and are thought to act as sensory organs for the flightless Snow Flies.
Throughout most of the year Snow Flies can be found in leaf litter, but come winter the adults emerge, mate and lay up to 200 eggs. The lack of predators such as dragonflies and most insect-eating birds makes winter a relatively safe time for Snow Flies to be out and about. Their life span is about two months, during which time they drink by pressing their proboscis against the snow, but they don’t eat. (Snow Fly in photograph is a female, measuring less than ½”.)
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Carpenter Bees Hibernating
If your home, shed or barn has weathered, unpainted wood and is riddled with ½”-diameter, perfectly round holes, there is a chance that carpenter bees are hibernating in them. Carpenter bees resemble bumblebees in both size and appearance (a carpenter bee has very few hairs on the top of its abdomen, which appears black and shiny, whereas bumble bee abdomens are often yellow and hairy), but they are not social insects. Instead of having a common nest in which they live and raise their young, carpenter bees drill holes in wooden structures or trees inside of which they chew tunnels that contain six to eight brood chambers for their young. After creating the chambers, the female carpenter bee places a portion of “bee bread” (a mixture of pollen and regurgitated nectar) in each one. On top of each pile of food she lays an egg and then seals off the chamber. The larvae eat and grow, pupate and emerge as adult bees in late summer. At this point they feed on nectar, pollinating a wide variety of flowers before they return to their tunnels to over-winter.
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Where Do Grasshoppers Go In Winter?
Everyone knows that grasshoppers disappear once cold weather arrives. Where do they go and what is their strategy for surviving the winter? Most grasshoppers overwinter as eggs. They mate, lay eggs and die in the fall. The female Red-legged Grasshopper, New England’s most abundant species of grasshopper, deposits clusters of eggs one to two inches deep in the soil in the late summer and early fall. During this process, a glue-like secretion cements soil particles around the egg mass, forming a protective “pod.” Each pod is roughly three-quarters to one-inch long and curved. The top third is dried froth, the bottom two-thirds contain 20 to 26 eggs. Each egg is just over 1/10th of an inch long and pale yellow.
In the spring, nymphs hatch out of the eggs, crawl up to the surface of the soil and start to feed on grasses and other herbaceous plants. It takes about three months for them to mature and begin the cycle all over again. (Photo: gravid female Red-legged Grasshopper in late summer)
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