Fri July 5, 2013  Wasp watchers being recruited  Credit Cornell
University Cooperate Extension Onondaga County    "They have
been known to take those beetles, paralyze them and take them
back to their nest," says Kristina Ferrare, a forestry resource
educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension. She  says these
aren't the kind of wasps that sting us, but ground nesting wasps
called Cerceris fumipennis.  The Cooperative Extension wants
volunteers to watch some of these nests, usually found in sandy
soil, and see what bugs the mother wasp is bringing home for
dinner.    "We use a simple index card, with a hold punched in
each end. It's secured to the ground on one side with a golf
tee, with the other opening over a hole of the nest entrance. So
the female by herself can come and go through that hole and get
into the next. But she's not able to fit through the hole with a
prey beetle," said Ferrare.  The wasp watcher turns the beetles
dropped by mother wasp to the Cooperative Extension office, and
they'll determi