Several emails have come to the UGA Extension Fulton County help desk reporting “swarms of wasps” in clients’ yards, “flying quite low to the ground.” One Fulton County resident said, “They seem to be in constant motion, never landing or stopping. Their flight pattern gives the impression that they are actively searching for something.” Well, they were right! But what are they searching for?
The mysterious swarming wasps in question are blue-winged wasps, also called digger wasps or Scolia dubia. Blue-winged wasps are about ½-1 inch long and cloaked in black from the tips of their antennae to the top third of their abdomen. They give the impression of a film noir character wearing a black leather trench coat. The rest of the abdomen is a rusty, reddish brown with two bright yellow spots. Their powerful wings are a deep navy blue with an iridescent sheen in the sunlight.
Blue-winged wasps are what we call “solitary wasps”—they live, build their nests and feed their offspring alone. This lifestyle is different than paper wasps and bald-faced hornets, which are social wasps, living in one large colony where groups of wasps have designated jobs. Because the whole colony lives in one place, social wasps can be more aggressive and will defend their family unit at all costs. On the other hand, solitary wasps, like the blue-winged wasp and many others, are not aggressive. Because they’re on their own, they can’t risk stinging you and getting squashed, as no one else will step in to feed their offspring.
Many solitary wasps specialize on a certain type of prey, and the blue-winged wasp is no exception. Scolia dubia are predators of June bugs and Japanese beetles. The female wasp digs to find the larval form of the beetles, also known as “white grubs,” stings the grub to paralyze it, then lays her egg on the…
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