Home Sweet Home

This wasp's nest is about a foot long and a couple inches wide, and is cleverly situated right along the door jamb of the laundry room. As I was going in, a black and yellow wasp-waisted creature was coming out, but we did not collide. Although it's smack dab in an unfortunate place, I don't really want to destroy the nest--for one thing I'm fascinated by the mud wall construction. The wasp must carry the mud from somewhere to patch this thing together, and I think it's just one creature doing all this work. Then it paralyzes its prey, brings it back to the nest, and apparently seals it in one of these compartments so that the larva have fresh food when they hatch. That is an astonishing amount of labor! My knowledgable neighbor says they are hunting wasps and they are not aggressive toward people. I hope he's right.

The Extra photo is a full view of the nest, so you can get an idea of scale. The laundry room is outside.