Blue Mud Dauber Wasp
When I was a kid, I used to find these blobs of mud stuck on our farm buildings, mostly under the eaves or in other spots where they would be protected from the rain. When I broke them open from time to time, they were either filled with paralyzed spiders, or had a wasp pupa inside. I’d often watch them being repaired and stocked by wasps that looked like this:
This is another old picture that I took in 2007, and the wasp was large enough that I tried getting the pictures without the macro lens, which is why the pictures came out a bit blurry.
[Note added in 2014: I’ve since taken some better pictures of blue mud dauber wasps, if you want to see the details better. They are here.]
I also refrigerated it, which made it pretty much act as if it were dead until it warmed up again. This seems to be a trait of hymenoptera – ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies don’t seem to take cold temperatures very well.
Anyway, it is a Blue Mud Dauber, genus Chalybion. The metallic blue color is quite striking, and the elongated, very thin waist is very distinctive.
While they are wasps, and they can sting, they are solitary wasps and don’t generally sting people except in extreme self-defense[1]. They mainly save the stinging for the spiders that they catch to feed to their grubs. What they do is this: first, they find, refurbish, or build out of mud a tube about one-quarter of an inch in diameter (roughly 5 mm). Then, they go and find spiders that they ambush, and quickly sting just so. They don’t kill the spider outright, because then it will start to rot right away. Instead, they just paralyze it, which keeps it fresh[5]. Depending on how big the spiders are, she’ll nab five or six of them and stuff them into the tube. Then she’ll lay an egg on them, cap the tube off with more mud, and start stocking the next tube. The egg then hatches, and the grub eats the paralyzed spiders as it grows. Then, come around fall, it pupates and waits for spring, at which time it finishes, pops out of the nest, and flies off to do in some more spiders. It’s a lot of work to build new nest tubes out of mud, so frequently they’ll just clean out an existing old nest and start over. They often take over the abandoned nests of other kinds of mud daubers (particularly nests of the related Black and Yellow Mud Dauber), or sometimes just take advantage of tubular openings that they find[2].
Whether these wasps are good or bad to have around kind of depends on your opinion of spiders. I’ve read that they will actually prey on black widows, if that’s the sort of thing that concerns you. Around here, though, the spiders they eat are really the sorts of things I’d rather keep around. Their mud nests are kind of ugly, too, and make things awkward when you need to repaint buildings.
I’m not quite sure why they specialize in spiders, it seems like it would be safer to go after things like caterpillars. The only reason I can think of, is that spiders are much less likely to have chemical defenses and toxins than caterpillars do[3]. It may also be that spiders are easier to paralyze for some reason, maybe it’s easier to hit their master nerve ganglion.
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[1] Most solitary wasps are pretty mellow that way, because there’s no percentage for them in stinging you unless you are actually killing them. See, if you have a whole nest of social wasps, then it is worth their while to sent a few out to discourage large mammals like us, because even if the defenders get swatted and killed, they are still likely to save the nest from being molested. The survivors can then continue taking care of the grubs, and the colony goes on. A solitary wasp doesn’t have that luxury, though. If she stings you to try to drive you away from the nest, and gets herself killed, then there’s nobody to stock the nest and the whole thing is a loss. It’s actually better for her to abandon a threatened nest and save herself, than to try to defend it. But, if you grab the wasp and try to kill her, she no longer has anything to lose, and that’s when she’ll sting you.
[2] My grandmother had these wind chimes that had kind of lost their chime, they just went “clunk, clunk” when the wind blew instead of ringing. I noticed that the weren’t working, looked into the tubes, and found that I couldn’t actually see through them. So, I took a piece of wire and rammed it through – and found out that the tubes were packed with mud. It seems they were just the right diameter to appeal to the mud daubers, and they’d used them for nests.
[3] Although, there’s one thing about spiders that live next to rivers and lakes. If the spider mainly eats insects that have aquatic larvae, those larvae are likely to have accumulated mercury from the water – particularly if they were predatory larvae preying on other, smaller animals. So, spiders in those conditions can have a very heavy mercury load[4]. This is evidently a problem for birds that eat spiders, because then they have an even larger mercury load, to the point where it can kill them.
[4] What happens with mercury is this: you start with a very tiny quantity in the atmosphere, that eventually gets caught in the rain and carried into rivers and lakes. The mercury then converts to a form that living things will take up. Plants grow, and some of this mercury gets into their tissues. An animal then eats the plants, and the mercury gets into their fat, which holds onto it. So, they end up retaining pretty much all the mercury that they eat, concentrating it to a higher level than it was at in the plants. Then something else eats the first animal, and concentrates the mercury still more. So, if you have a chain that goes something like algae => water flea => carnivorous caddisfly => bluegill => bass => you, there are four stages of mercury concentration before you get it. If we assume that each stage of concentration increases the mercury levels by a factor of ten, then you are looking at 10x10x10x10 = 10,000 times more mercury than if you had just eaten the algae. If, on the other hand, you have algae => carp => you, there’s only one stage of concentration, so you only get 10 times more mercury than the algae, which is much better. Basically, if you want to minimize mercury in your diet, you want to eat terrestrial plants, or animals that eat terrestrial plants, and you really want to avoid eating meat from carnivores that eat other carnivores that eat aquatic animals that eat aquatic plants. Eating meat from bears that have been eating salmon that have been eating other fish would be exactly the wrong thing to do.
[5] Which brings up one of my favorite entries in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:
“Terry the Tarantula and Wendy the Wasp were frolicking and cavorting together in the Flowery Meadow, (as they were the best of friends in all the Enchanted Forest of Miggly-Wompsly) when, all of a sudden, and with no warning whatsoever, Wendy accidentally stabbed Terry with her stinger, making her very sad for she knew that soon her poison would paralyze her friend and after a while her eggs would hatch inside him, and then her happy wriggling larva would slowly eat him alive, but Terry tried to smile and would have told her not to be sad as this was how the Circle of Life was continued, but he was in too much pain and, as I mentioned before, paralyzed.”
(Delano Lopez, Washington, DC, in the “Children’s Story” category, 2001)
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Great post. Love the info.
Another wonderful post!
The short story brought a grin to my face, poor spider.
Thank you for these great pictures and the information. I have a question for you. We are seeing many (10-15) of these blue wasps visiting our grill. They duck into openings and come out. I cannot see mud nests yet. We have sprayed and antagonized the group of wasps, but they have not left nor died. Our concern is that we will heat up the grill and the wasps will not be happy and may want revenge! Why do you think we see so many blue mud daubers together? How can we get rid of them? Thanks for your post and any help would be greatly appreciated.
Kristi: I sometimes see large numbers of blue mud daubers hanging around particularly good nesting spots, so probably they are nesting in the grill. If there are crevices that they can use, they may be building the nests where you can’t see them. Spraying them may not do much, because if it is that prime of a nesting spot you might be getting new ones coming in to replace the ones that you kill off.
If you can’t plug the holes in the grill to keep them out, and sprays aren’t killing them, well, I don’t know. It kind of depends on what your grill looks like. It is possible that a couple of mothballs in the grill might make it unattractive to them. Or, if the whole grill gets good and hot when it is used, maybe you could just light it up, and then stand back while it burns until all the wasps are burned up. That *might* do it. Sorry not to be more help.
I have a whole swarm of them it seems hanging out around my soffit facia, under my eaves trough. One landed on my foot but didnt sting me. I’m wondering are these things attracted to sweet things like other bees and wasps? I am wondering because I would like to make a bee trap but my husband wasnt sure if they would be attracted to sweet. Thank you.
Wildly cool info! A definite indication that you are an intelligent being. I was wondering… I live in S.E. Texas and see these wasps on occasion, and we use the term “blue bottle” for them. Have you heard that term used for this wasp? Or is that term reserved for another species? Anyhow, I have also read that these wasps NEVER make nests; instead they recycle the nests from the other varieties of mud dauber. Anyway… great pictures, great info.
By the way… Today I had found a black and yellow mud dauber in my home. I captured him with a large plastic kitchen strainer and a book, and I was interested in identifying exactly what type of wasp this was. Glory to the internet. I found your site, and I am delighted to know that these wasps rarely sting. Currently it is extremely dry here in texas, so when I water the plants and the guineas I love to watch these wasps scrape up bits of mud. I have never seen construction in progress, but I will be seeking. Anyway, I let him/her free after a brief ten minutes of captivity, and I was interested in what they do when they are not busy building nests and laying eggs. What about mud-dauber sex? What do the males do? It is cool to see somebody with an “arthropod backyard exploration project”! ‘Round these parts, there is little to no intellectual activity. This site is very nice, and I will explore it more. Thanks for the information!
Jillian: I understand that the adult wasps mainly live on plant nectar (and to some extent body fluids from the spiders that they catch), so they probably are attracted to sweets. You may need to let it ferment a bit to develop a scent before they will be able to find it, though.
Robert: Around here, there is a species of fly that is about the same color, that people call “blue-bottle flies”. I’ve never heard anyone call the wasps that, but I’m sure that it varies by region. It’s not as if the common names are official in any way, in any case. As far as building their own nests, I think that they will if they have to, but that they will try to find an old nest to refurbish first. I’m not sure what the males do, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one. Anyway, glad you like the site.
Thank you. I will let you know how it works.
We have a rather strange situation with a congregation of blue mud daubers each summer. Mostly before dusk, but sometimes in the afternoon, they fly into our porch area and roost together on the brick wall. This area is protected from the sun and wind. They sleep there at night and awaken in the morning to fly off. It is strange to see them mass together. I have counted anywhere from 10 to 20 of them grouped together. I cannot find any information of blue mud daubers roosting at night. Is this typical? I have a picture of this as well.
Well, it isn’t exactly the same species (although thread-waisted wasps are related to mud daubers), but Eric Eaton has a nice little article about sleeping solitary wasps. It’s evidently pretty common for solitary bees and wasps to sleep in groups like that.
A few years ago, I was stung on my hand by one of these blue wasps when I turned off the water faucet outside. I am not usually allergic to any bees or wasps, but when the blue wasp stung me, instantly my hand, then my forearm, and soon all the way up to my shoulder and neck were red, swollen and aching terribly. My heart started beating very rapidly, and I started getting dizzy. Have you ever heard of anything like this happening to anyone else? I’m not afariad of bees, but now when these guys come around I get the kids inside.
Nice bit of info. I have been wondering what type of wasp they were since they seem to appear every July here in Monroe County, MI at my house. I’m glad that they will not sting unless handled as I have no clue as to if I am allergic to bee/wasp stings or not; and I would prefer not to find out the hard way with me having asthma and all.
Kristi B.:
You had a anaphylatic reaction to the wasp venom. This can be life threatening. You need to see a doctor right away to get an Epi-pen in case of future stings. Sometimes, one is stung many years ago by a wasp or bee and nothing happens. This causes a sensitization in your body so that when you get stung again you have the reaction. This is what happened to me and I almost died. It must be treated as a medical emergency. Please don’t take any chances.
Wonderful post! Thank you! I have been finding a lot of these wasp on the outside of the office where I work, I was very curious to what they were, I have an anaphylatic reaction to bees, hornets, and yellow jacks. So far not to wasps and I needed to make sure they were not some new, super bread that I could be allergic to! The information and the pictures you included in your post were very helpful to know that this is the wasp I am looking for information on and what to look for on the outside of the building to stay away from!
Jessica K: Glad to help. I notice that a lot of people are looking at this particular page all of a sudden, I guess that they must start emerging and building nests right about now.
I have these same wasps in my exterior back door light. They seem to hang around there more towards the evening time. They go through the small crack at the top of the light to get inside where the insulated part is. I want to take the light down to see how many are in there and hopefully get rid of them but I am affraid to get stung multiple times by them. Anyone have any suggestions to rid of them.
Probably your best bet is just to wait a couple of weeks until the adults finish stocking their nests and die off. Then you can open up the light fixture and safely clean out the mud nest. Then if you seal the fixture so that there are no openings large enough for them to get in, that should keep them from coming back again next year.
Okay, just yesterday I had went to go let my dogs in from outside, and then I didn’t see anything fly in the house when I had closed the door. After I had locked the door, something big and crawling caught my eye. I looked over to where the movement was and I saw what looked like a black bug with wings. I had called my dad over to check it out and right away he knew it was a wasp. Now, from the discription and comments from the other people that saw these wasps, it looks like most of them are in Texas. I live in Indiana, and it has been raining here alot but I have absolutely no mud anywhere at all in my yard and backyard. My dad killed it and I did secretly study it for fifteen minutes before I flushed it long enough to relize what it looked like. Is this normal for these blue mud wasps to be in Indiana?
Tim, nice to see this thread’s comments going a second summer! Thank you for the interesting, high-quality pics and text. I found this page after identifying a wasp sighted today–the first day of summer–as a blue mud dauber, =Chalybion californicum=. It was nectaring on some Queen Anne’s lace, =Daucus=, which in my yard just opened today.
The wasp’s I.D. traits, confirmed by this page:
1. Large overall size: At first I thought it might be a diurnal moth.
2. Beautiful iridescent blue sheen flickering in and out on black wings as the creature moved about on the flower umbel and “flexed” its wings; revealing > > >
3. Awesome waspwaist! Just a long, narrow thread holding the abdomen onto the thorax! (See esp. Tim’s 4th and 3rd pics.)
Katie, I’m commenting two days after your wasp encounter, and I live in Illinois about 35 miles from Indiana. {I find it hard to believe you “have absolutely no mud at all in [your] yard”! You haven’t paved it all over, I hope! 😉 }
In years past I have not noticed mud dauber nests on the house or other structures–paper wasps yes, but not mud daubers. I’ll keep an eye out for them and hope I can “follow” one through the growing season.
Correction: Katie, I’m posting the same day as you, so my sighting today follows yours by just =1= day. Egad–I’ve been labeling everything as “06.21” today and wished people a happy first day of summer! I noticed the blue mud dauber while going through my yard noting which flowers were blooming on what I was thinking was the last day of the 3rd week of June (take flower “censuses” every week).
But today’s the last full day of spring. Well, it was a hot but nice day, capping off a very enjoyable spring. 🙂 Have a great summer!
Katie:
Indiana is certainly within their range. This site is originating from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and we have them, so you’ll surely have them too. As for the source of mud, they don’t actually need obvious muddy areas. As long as they can find crumbs of moist soil, they can make their mud even from a normal lawn.
Peter:
Thanks for the extra ID information. Some postings are perennial favorites, and it looks like this is turning into one of them.
We live in the Montreal area and for the past couple of summers I have been seeing these wasps around the gazebo in my back yard. I’ve never seen so many as the last few years. I notice that they crawl up along my brick wall into the eavesdrop. I am not sure whether they are nesting up there but I’m pretty sure I have a lot of spiders up there under the roof. Many years ago I observed one landing in a spider web and pretended to be stuck. When the spider came out (it was almost as big as the wasp) the wasp grabbed it and flew off with it . it was pretty interesting to watch.
When would be the best time to remove the eavesdrop to look for nests and not be surprised by a swarm of these wasps
Amazing site you have here!! Information the way I like it…. in abundance.
We just started seeing these in our backyard here in Phoenix, AZ. (lots of dry mud here)
And I had no idea what they were. So I was killing them , one by one. And I noticed everyone I killed, had a cricket in it’s grasp! After reading your info on these, I may just keep them from nesting on my house, but not killing anymore of them.
Thank You
Brian: When I was a kid, I think I remember the nests being sealed and the adults gone by the end of July for sure, and maybe as early as mid-July. Probably you can poke around your eaves as soon as you stop seeing adults coming and going.
Lee: Glad to be helpful. Mud daubers (and insects in general) get a lot more diverse as one gets closer to the equator. I understand that there are several kinds of blue solitary wasps that mainly differ in their prey items – ours here in the north go for spiders, but you obviously also have some that specialize in crickets. In any case, you are correct that there really isn’t any need for killing them if they aren’t coming inside your house. They are some of the most effective pest control agents around.
Back to your site for a look…. Last year we had a humongous crop of black/yellow mud daubers. They were everywhere, even in the house! I enjoy watching them work. They are super-dexterous using their legs and mandibles, and watching them fashion their nest tubes up close is amazing. This year, though, there seem to be far fewer. Perhaps because we had a couple of good freezes over the winter. I had no idea that the newly hatched daubers had been waiting in there all winter! Nice website.
Robert V
age 40
Richmond, Texas
Thanks for this fab site… I have just seen the blue wasp for the first time since I moved to Las Vegas 20 yrs ago. I have a gazillion black widows as well as plenty of crickets, so I am surprised that I haven’t seen this wasp sooner.
Hi, thank you so much for all of the great info. I was looking up mud daubers to show my kids the difference between them and the more aggressive wasps, hornets and bees. I explained that mud-daubers are not aggressive (in my experience) and that they are beneficial insects and should not be harrassed by intelligent children, especially children with a dread of black widows and brown recluses. We are working on the concept of beneficial insects versus pests and threats. Orb weavers are now “cool” and daddy long-legs are friends, and now the newest addition to our ‘neighborhood’ is also on the good list.
I did warn the kids that with mud-daubers as part of our community they need to be more aware of where they put their bare feet down in damp areas. We are in the mountains of New Mexico and damp earth is at a premium. Would anyone happen to know if mud daubers have a preferred time of day for their mudballing endeavors? A time share would be ideal-just to avoid squashed daubers and stung toes.
Great info, ok, I had to say it because it’s true. The easyest site I have accessed so far. On Aug. 6th, I saw a hugh 2 inch plus long wasp land on the grass and climb down into it, walk arround, then fly off. It looked a solid black and I saw no sheen of blue. Having seen no mud nests arround I question what this hugh wasp really is. Have not seen it since. But, last year did see smaller (closer to 1 1/2 inch long) blue black wasps resting /hunting on the leaves of a walnut tree. Do they change size after they are out of the nest? Could they be different species and how to tell? Am so greatful for any help. It startled me so I didn’t catch the petiole length compared to the abdomenal length. But, it was magnificent!
The bigger wasp is most likely a different species than the smaller ones, since insects normally don’t grow any further once they get their wings on their final molt. Up where I am, the blue mud dauber is the only common good-sized metallic-blue wasp with an elongated waist, but further south there are several different kinds, not all of which are mud daubers. Depending on where you are, it might even be one of the “Tarantula Hawks” in the genus Pepsis, for example. They get really big, and some of them are almost completely black.
I have a wasp looking insect thats has a red body and black wings .they did holes in the ground,lots of holes
this is a cruel project. nobody wants to see dead animals or insects. and so what if there a pest its just not right.
Luke: You are objecting to something that I am not actually doing. I don’t intentionally kill the insects that I photograph. This one, in particular, was very much alive – I just refrigerated it to slow it down for a couple of pictures, and after it woke up it was released alive and unharmed.
Some of the arthropods on these pages I found after they had died of other causes, and I admit I accidentally killed a couple of them while handling them, but the overwhelming majority were photographed alive and then released. I don’t see that your complaint has any merit.
Hey I love your post!!! The blue mud dauber has made its nest in some holes in my printer.It is very exciting to see a mother wasp build her nest and then the baby wasp remodelling it and using it for himself/herself. Another thing I noticed is the fact that the baby wasp has a smaller “bum”( that thing with which it stings spiders) than his/her mother, only after a couple of days does it become as good and sharp as its mother.
Tanvi: In your *printer*? Wow. If you mean what I think you mean, I’m a bit astounded that the printer still works (or does it?). Although, I guess as long as they don’t put mud on any moving parts there’s nothing really wrong with that.
I’m trying to get my head around how this happened. Do you just have a routinely-open window so that they can get to your printer, or is the printer just stored somewhere that wasps can come and go?
Didn’t know much about BLUE mud dauber…but the other night on the farm..the wasps started roosting on string to out door ceiling fan and between the chain on porch string…Not knowing this sometimes happens…it really gave me the chills. After they got settled in they didn’t move until morning about 7:00. Than around 3:00 PM here they came again. (there must have been atleast 40 or more) We had to go back to city so didn’t get to observe any longer.
I did take some pictures of them roosting and sent then to my Wildlife biologist son, who did varify they were the blue mud dauber wasp and just leave them alone.
P/S forgot to ask…is this situation only temporary or should be take action to shoo them away. With them being right on the porch ,it could be alittle annoying, since we sit on the back porch alot when we are there. Thanks for your help…
Lin: It should be temporary. I’ve heard of blue mud daubers forming “roosting aggregations”, where they will accumulate in one spot at night to sleep together. There is a technical note about a mud dauber roosting aggregation at this site:
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oas/oas_pdf/v39/p39_40.pdf
In that note, it says that they kept roosting on parts of the author’s porch swing, starting in June and continuing until about the third week of August. So it sounds like they are likely to keep coming back to your pull-chain every night for most of the summer if left undisturbed. On the other hand, they aren’t aggressive if left alone, so there probably isn’t an overwhelming reason to disturb them.
I actually just killed one of these things today and found myself finally remembering to look them up tonight. I normally don’t kill stuff like this, but it was in my porch and I thought it looked dangerous. I have a daughter to worry about and live in the country where you can’t take too many chances with bugs (there are a million out here).
Anyway, interesting post about this little guy. I almost feel bad for ending his life. I just love how cyclical your comments are — almost for three years you’ve been getting comments on this post but only during summer. haha, pretty neat.
You’re right about how the comments are seasonal. Traffic to this site in general is pretty seasonal – there are almost 3 times as many visitors in the summer as there are in the winter.
I’m up in Ottawa (Canada’s capital!) and have seen many a wasp in my day. However, I just saw my very first metallic Blue Mud Dauber! Beautiful insect, as far as wasps go… I have 4 kids and the eldest (now a teen) was stung by a wasp, on the palate, while eating an apple as a child. He now has a phobia of flying insects. Needless to say, I have been introducing the younger ones to our “friends”, the honeybees and teaching them to respect their space, but not to fear them. As for wasps, I tend to tell them to be careful, as they are more aggressive. Now, with this very educational post, I am armed with better info.
Thanks so much and have another great summer!
Marc
Ottawa, Canada
I live in the Bronx, NY and have seen these wasp nest in my back yard for years. Althought they do look intimidating I did notice a very calm and non-threatening behavior from them. I did notice that they are far more intelligent than bees or other insects that I have encountered. One summer I had a window fan installed however the window screen had a small tear in it 1/2″, as I was sitting on the sofa I noticed this wasp sitting on the fan inside the home while it was working. As I got closer to see what exactly it was it flew right out the window through the window fan(while working) and right out the small hole in the mesh. After this incident I maintain all window meshes meticulously. LoL. Just shows the capabilities these wasps have.
I just left a camp in Northeast Ga were I killed many of these in the cabin my campers and I were in. One got it’s revenge and stung me right between my pointer finger and thumb. Thank goodness we had a doctor on site because my hand went numb and swelled. I guess I had a minor allergic reaction to it. I had never seen these before but I guess the cabin is a good nesting place for them.
Cass: That’s a big part of the reason why I generally don’t try to kill wasps – the probability of being stung by a wasp you are actively trying to kill is much, much higher than that of being stung by one that is just hanging out.
While I’ve been stung a lot of times, I can only remember three occasions where I didn’t deserve it: twice when I was a kid and stepped on a bee while barefoot; and once when a wasp flew up my pantleg while I was bicycling. The other times, I was stung because I was in some way molesting a nest or hive, and I would have been fine if I’d just been minding my own business.
And a note on allergic reactions to insect stings: The local reactions (even the “large local reactions” where an entire limb swells up) are not the life-threatening ones. The ones that are dangerous are the whole-body anaphylactic reactions, where you have difficulty breathing, may have heart-rhythm problems, and may pass out. Having large local reactions is not an indicator that you are in danger of anaphylactic shock (and, for that matter, a lack of such reactions does not indicate that you are not at risk of developing anaphylactic shock, either).
We have these blue wasps in our house all the time and we can not figure out how they are getting in. We have a sun room that butts up to our house and I keep thinking it is a tiny hole that they are using or perhaps the vents that have no screens on them for the bathroom or stove fans. My hubby has sprayed the hole in the sun room but to no avail. We are having our screens in the sun room repaired as over time they are brittle and have small holes in them. In our garage there are lots of mud wasp nests. Should we get rid of them in the colder weather to stop seeing these blue wasps ? Thanks for the wonderful information on your site.
Christine
Tonawanda, NY
Christine: If they are determined to get in, then it doesn’t take much of a hole – they can go through a hole as small as 1/4 inch pretty easily. If you really want to get rid of them, I expect that removing the mud nests from your garage would be a good start, as they will tend to come back to re-use old nests as long as they are available. I’d suggest checking the outside walls of the sun room to see if you can spot wasps coming and going, as that would be where the holes are. If there is a space between the roof of the sun room and the ceiling that you can access, I’d suggest looking in there, because they love to build nests under roofs.
I had never seen any of these wasps until this year and there are MANY of them guarding a small tree on the other side of my garage. They are beautiful. I am not afraid of them but one did scare the daylight out of me by flying past my head…IT WAS HUGE! This huge one…I see often and it is like 5 times larger than the others. It is like a small bird…like a hummingbird and you can hear its wings buzzing when it get close. I don’t want to bother them. That big one does scare me a little because I have a 3 yr old. She knows not to bother creatures but you never know. Do you think huge one is a queen? She is not shy one bit of she is.
Pennie: The big one is probably a completely different species of wasp. Depending on where you are, it could be a “cicada killer” or a “tarantula hawk”, both of which are pretty huge and more than a bit intimidating. But, like the other solitary wasps, I understand that they won’t sting you if you don’t bother them.
I have a decorative pond and have larger rocks around it. The mud daubers are steeling mud from around and under the rocks. I have thrown some mulch down but the mud daubers still are hanging around and trying to take what they need.
Is there any way to get rid of them??