Mud Daubers, friend or foe?

Why all the sudden interest in mud daubers?  You know how you hear talk about a certain subject and that subject comes up again? It was that way with mud daubers for me.  Since I was at the Alabama Soap Meeting on Friday and Saturday, I got another facial from Tammy Doering of Dead Sea Bulk Materials. My new friend Aimee Morhan of Magnolia Soaps that I met at the conference was suggesting that mud daubers would be a cute name for young girls that use facial mud.  Being the earthy chick, it sounded like a neat idea to me! Tammy was not so sure about it.  That got me to thinking that perhaps we should know a little bit more about our mud dauber friends and how they could actually be beneficial.

We had one of these lovely blue creatures in our house last night.  He was carefully guided outside to the deck rail on a towel.  I took a few pictures with the iphone and said that I would blog about them and so here we are!  I knew from my garden bugs training that they are beneficial. What I had forgotten was exactly how. I’d like to share the pictures again and tell you a few facts that perhaps you didn’t know about mud daubers!

They get their name by making nests that resemble pipes on buildings made of mud.  The female is the one in charge of nest building. The yellow and black varieties are the industrious mud nest makers.  The blue varieties are all about reuse and recycle as they won’t make a new nest but will use an old one left over by the yellow and black variety. Favorite nest sites include under eaves, porch ceilings, in garages and sheds left open, in barns, protected building walls, in attics, etc. 

Unlike their cousins in the wasp family, hornets and yellow jackets, they are not aggressive about defending their nest. In fact, they won’t even sting you unless you make it so. It’s just not what they are after.  Then begs the question of what ARE they after?   Spiders.

Here’s a short list of what they leave in the nest for the lil ones to eat once they hatch from the eggs. Spiders that they paralyze so that they stay in place.  What kind of spiders are their favorite you ask?  Black widow spiders. (Now tell me how that is not a bad thing!) Other spiders could be beneficial in that they eat other insects so I think what we are talking about is a balance or cycle of insect to spider food. Too much of any one of them would not be a good thing. (doesn’t that translate to most of life!?)

Mud daubers are solitary wasps, they are not social and do not live in colonies. I’ve seen one or two flit about in the garden for a little bit of water.  The blue ones in my opinion are easy to spot as mud daubers. The black and yellow could be around and be mistaken for a more aggressive wasp. Here’s a couple of links to pictures in case you are interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_dauber

http://www.greenvalleypc.com/html/wasp/mud.htm

Happy washing!

~Regina