Sherry mentioned my wasp nest on her blog and via the comments was revealed this hand-made hornet’s nest by papermaker Gin Petty. You can read her full account of making it here.
And browsing around Flickr I found these pictures by Andrew Dill of a wasp nest built on a window:
Here’s something I learned today. ‘Hymenoptera’ (i.e. bees, wasps and ants) are not called that because of all those virgin workers, as I’d always vaguely assumed. Rather it’s
from Greek humenopteros ‘membrane-winged,’ from humēn ‘membrane’ + pteron ‘wing.’
Which perhaps I should have realised, since Hymen wasn’t god of virginity but marriage.
And here’s a good word: haplo-diploid.