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How can I get some WOWBugs?

As with most things in life, you can spend a little money or spend a little time. The choice is yours. WOWBugs are available commercially from Carolina Biological Supply at modest cost.

If instead, you'd like to collect your own, here's how to do it.

1. Find some mud dauber nests. Look for nests under bridges, under eaves, and on the walls of houses, barns, carports, or other shelters. Mud daubers often build their nests in the same general location, year after year. In general, the longer a location has been used, the larger the parasite population will be.

Although it is safe to remove nests anytime, the best time to collect nests is during the colder months of the year (roughly October to March in North America). During this time, the nests have been abandoned by the parent wasps. Any living contents within the nests will be dormant and are not hazardous.

Choose nests that still have young mud dauber larvae inside, i.e. nests built last summer. Look for nests that do NOT have large holes in their sides. Those large holes are made by mud daubers that grew to adulthood and emerged in early summer. They indicate an older nest that was made more than a year ago.

2. Remove some young nests. Push the blade of a putty knife or spatula between the nest and the surface it is built on. Hold a box or dustpan below the nest to catch any broken pieces. Wear protective goggles to keep dust from getting in your eyes.

3. Store nests until needed. If not needed immediately, mud dauber nests can be easily kept in a refrigerator in a resealable plastic bag or other sealed container. Because of the mud dauber wasp's life cycle, an adult would never lurk inside a nest collected in fall, winter, or spring. Adults live for only a few brief weeks during the summer. However, if last summer's nest is kept out of the refrigerator for a few weeks, the grub-like immatures will complete development to adulthood and they may emerge. Plan accordingly.

4. Dissect the nest to find WOWBugs. Place the nest on a sheet of paper or a paper plate to hold the crumbled mud for easier disposal. Carefully break open the nest, cell by cell. Find cells that contain a single, large, dark brown, tan, or black cylindrical object enmeshed in silk. These are cocoons made by fully grown mud dauber larvae.

To discover whether a particular mud dauber cocoon has been parasitized by WOWBugs, use your thumbnail to pop off one end of the cocoon. Tip out the contents. When you find a cocoon that contains a mass of very small, larva-like creatures, you've discovered young Melittobia!!

These can be raised to adulthood at room temperature in a small covered container such as a clean pill bottle or test tube. Use a cotton ball to make a stopper. Enough air will pass through for their needs. Plug it tightly. Adult females will have escape very much on their minds.

You might be lucky enough to find adult Melittobia.They'll be small black wasps amidst various cell debris. Store them in the same manner as the larvae. Since you don't know how old they already are, plan to use them immediately or place them with a fresh mud dauber larva to start a new generation of WOWBugs.

Field-collected Melittobia may be the true WOWBug, M. digitata, or they may be a closely related species whose biology and life cycle may differ in certain respects from M. digitata. For most published classroom activities, they should behave in essentially similar ways.

Remember that you may have more than a single Melittobia species. If you are also maintaining cultures of the true WOWBug, always keep these field-collected cultures separate to avoid the confusion inherent in mixed or contaminated cultures.