Cocktail Hour

Is this too much John Cheever-John Updike, drunken wasps getting it on? Above are Thread-waisted Wasps (Eremnophila aureonotata) mating on that pollinator-magnet mountain mint (Pycnanthemum). Like many wasps, the adults eat nectar, but feed their larvae flesh. (OK, now we’ve entered Stephen King territory) These provision their young with caterpillars. Blue-winged, a.k.a. Digger Wasp (Scolia dubia) with their distinctive yellow dots on red-orange abdomen. These are all over the city; I walked by a swarm in the middle of a front yard in Park Slope recently. The females dig burrows in search of beetle larvae to feed their young; Green June Bugs and invasive Japanese Beetles are favored.