Hornets - where are they not available?

Polistes dominulus has a very wide distribution - all of Europe, Central and South-West Asia (incl. Israel ), Canada, USA, Australia. But it can not be called cosmopolitan , since this species is absent in tropical Asia, most of Africa and South America ( although there it seems to have been introduced to Chile).

By the way, they write a lot of interesting things about these very Polistes dominulus: as if the nest is often built not by one female, but by several, (they fly together? From their observations, as if so), as well as the fact that they have a hierarchy inside the genzda and the spots on their heads are otonshenie to it... Interesting...
Links:
http://www.geocities.com/quelea/waspinfo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes
(As far as these sources can be trusted...)

According to the book definition, very few animals and plants can be called cosmopolitan, yes.
And according to my version, the nest is founded not by flocking females, but by wintering together. I don't have any observational evidence for this, but I've seen two females fight over a nest site more than once. The question is, why are they fighting when you can safely get down to business?
That there is a hierarchy in the nests is for sure, it is expressed in the German phenotype, in polistes... I'm talking about the spots. Very strange, what do spots have to do with the ability to dominate, if dominance is usually based on more significant differences? In the example with karate players, this is not correct. There, belts get _after they prove their status, and os spots appear immediately. Now, if experimenters examined the ovaries of wasps to prove a direct link between the size of the spot and the possibility of becoming a new female queen.

Maybe the presence/number of spots is somehow related to the development of the individual? That is, it correlates with other traits that are important for dominance. By the way, in my records (from 97, in Baku still) it appears that 24.4 in one place there were first two, and then, two days later, four wasps. And 10.5 the first cell of the nest appears. However, judging by the records, the wasps have been building a nest in this place for the second year and it is noted that one is slightly larger than the others, although this apparently does not mean anything. Maybe my sisters? Unfortunately, there are no records from the previous year. Also, it is indicated that there seemed to be a lot of wasps wintering the next year, but only three survived until spring, and even, which is quite strange, two more "daughter" ones appeared near the big nest in the summer-pressed to it, but not connected. Small, cells on 10.

With my observations, I can point out some specific facts - we have a nest - colony of dominulus was built by a large group of females, numbering 12-15 individuals. If desired, I can provide photos. They founded 4 cells next to each other. A month later, all of them switched to one hundred. Second fact: last year there was a dominulus nest in the same place. Only the new nest is much larger than last year's. Now I continue to monitor this colony. By the way, in P. nimpha living next to them, all gn-a were also based on the site of last year's ones. So the tendency to settle in old places in all 2 types of polistov is obvious. And as for the spots, you're right, because in the Internet I found an article by an American scientist about the influence of patterns and spots on the ability to dominate.

vespabellicosus,
can you give me photos, links? Very interesting! In general, the question that arose in my mind - if a genzdo is founded by several females, then it is always sisters (for example, from the previous nest last year), or several females can fly together and form a similar partnership? sealor, the fact that they fought may mean that this "camaraderie" doesn't always go smoothly. Maybe they didn't pay for something?

By the way, here in connection with wasps, I asked myself a question and I can't find anything worthwhile: who are hornets? It is often written that this is Vespa crabro, that is, one species of the genus Vespa. And it was about the fact that they seem to be many species. What's the big deal?

Hornets are probably those that are big, although then the queens of German hornets are already hornets, but this is not so if we take the size of working individuals as the determining factor. In general, in Russian literature, all who Vespa is hornets. In addition to crabro, orientalis is also distributed.

Species of the genus Vespa L.
http://trans.voila.fr/ano?anolg=65544&anou...sthematique.htm


By the way, here is a rather interesting site about Vespa crabro (even translated into Russian )
http://www.vespa-crabro.de/russia1.htm

I've been meaning to ask about that article for a long time.
Is it true that as it is written there:

1) " Building material hornets are made from the collected material-water,
carbohydrate-rich juices and proteins, in the form of extracted insects."

2)"Thus, this family is left with only one possibility of further construction-outside the birdhouse, where there is no sufficient protection from the weather. Or look for a new place. In the latter case, "search hornets" conduct reconnaissance flights to the immediate vicinity. After a successful search, new cells are built in the new nest. In the end, the queen moves to a new nest, accompanied by several working hornets"

If the first seems to me very very doubtful, then the second, if there is, is the creation of a colony, just like the red ants!!

There were a few more errors, probably translation errors:

"The life span of the uterus is only 3-4 weeks."
"From rotten wood hornets bite off piece by piece, the so-called
mandible and mix it with saliva."