In the spring, the 4th Orleans Beaver’s group approached the Friends of Petrie Island and offered to make and place insect watering stations for the wildflower garden. These stations have been a wonderful addition to the space, while providing another opportunity for community collaboration and environmental education.
Yesterday I visited the garden to bring them inside for the winter and was so surprised to find how a native insect used them.
Inside I found that a mud dauber wasp had made a nest for her offspring. Mud dauber wasps are non-aggressive solitary insects. The female wasp builds a mud nest by collecting wet dirt, shaping it into tubular cells and stuffing them with paralyzed spiders. It lays a single egg and seals the chamber. In the spring, if there is a hole in the cell, it will mean that the juvenile has survived the winter and chewed it’s way out.
Next to this particular station is a native boneset plant which arrived to the garden through happy accident. A lone seed hitch hiked its way hidden in the soil of one of the native plants that we planted. This plant is completely covered in beneficial bees, wasps and other native pollinators in late fall. It looks like it proved to be such a valuable source of nectar and food for it’s young to one pollinator that it laid eggs right next to it.
I decided to protect the station for the winter and left it where it was. It’s possible that the clay may crack over winter, but it will be interesting to see if the young insects do.
We’ll be excited to follow up and let you know!
~Lana, Wildflower garden volunteer