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So much for the habits of wasps.

Anthrenae do not subsist by culling from flowers as bees do, but for the most part on animal food: for this reason they hover about dung; for they chase the large flies, and after catching them lop off their heads and fly away with the rest of the carcases; they are furthermore fond of sweet fruits. Such is their food. They have also kings or leaders like bees and wasps; and their leaders are larger in proportion to themselves than are wasp-kings to wasps or bee-kings to bees. The anthrena-king, like the wasp-king, lives indoors. Anthrenae build their nests underground, scraping out the soil like ants; for neither anthrenae nor wasps go off in swarms as bees do, but successive layers of young anthrenae keep to the same habitat, and go on enlarging their nest by scraping out more and more of soil. The nest accordingly attains a great size; in fact, from a particularly prosperous nest have been removed three and even four baskets full of combs. They do not, like bees, store up food, but pass the winter in a torpid condition; the greater part of them die in the winter, but it is uncertain whether that can be said of them all, In the hives of bees several kings are found and they lead off detachments in swarms, but in the anthrena's nest only one king is found. When individual anthrenae have strayed from their nest, they cluster on a tree and construct combs, as may be often seen above-ground, and in this nest they produce a king; when the king is full-grown, he leads them away and settles them along with himself in a hive or nest. With regard to their sexual unions, and the method of their reproduction, nothing is known from actual observation. Among bees both the drones and the kings are stingless, and so are certain wasps, as has been said; but anthrenae appear to be all furnished with stings: though, by the way, it would well be worth while to carry out investigation as to whether the anthrena-king has a sting or not.