Advice for spp. to keep this year?

I've got 2 choices

-P. Exclamans (fav. always enjoy them)

-P. Metricus (Fun but have a bad temper)

So i'll attempt a colony of which ever someone chooses for me and i'll make a weekly journal about what is going on with them.

Exclamans i think theyed be fun never kept any polistes though.PS would wasps eat mealworms if i handed them to them?

Hmm I've never tried. Maybe? But I always go with crickets, they seem to work best.

Guess i'll be the judge then.

I think you should go with metricus. If I remember correctly, exclamans where one of the only two species which behaved oddly in an experiment where they kept various Polistes Spp. from around th US. I think they mentioned something about maybe they need a different kind of prey or something, but they did not know for sure. And your colonies always seemed to act wierd

So I think you will have better luck with metricus. If you get a queen without a nest ( which is what I prefer to do) and give her an embryo nest, she should easily adopt it and lay eggs. then you could work with her each day, just putting your hand in the cage and de-sensitizing her to you. That would nip their bad temper

You should have other Spp. in TX too. I would not really recommend any of them though... bellicosus is supposed to be one of the worst tempered of the Polistes, and most of the other species like annularis and instabilis have special needs and are hard to come by anyway

I always see Carolina around but never have been able to find their nests. Thats what I really want. But alright i'll go metricus... would the 12x12x12 KK be ok for them (the big ones we use)?

Can't you catch a young carolina queen who does not have a nest?

Personally, I hate capturing an already established nest because it takes a while for for the queen to get used to being in captivity and resume normal nest construction. So I always start with "homeless" queens

That size KK will be suitable for a colony.

Let us know what u decide! And those wasps should be starting to emerge

I'll probably go with Metricus this year unless, some how magically I find a Carolina.