Gaillardia World: Wasps

 There are so many different kinds of wasps.   Why I saw so few of them on Gaillardia pulchella this past summer, when Gaillardia was a magnet for so many other kinds of insects, I don't know. 

In June I saw a pair of wasps zig and zag through the Gaillardia in our front yard--but land on neighboring Salvia, a cultivated garden plant in the Mint Family:

  June 17, 2022

In July, several species of wasp visited Gaillardia briefly:

BugGuide.net identifies this wasp as a member of the Sub-Family

Eumeninae, Family Vespidae.   On the Gaillardia by the barn,

July 23, 2022.

Though wasps are major pollinators, this wasp is sneaking in as a "nectar thief," that is, breaking into the base of the flowers to get at the nectaries directly, while bypassing the pollen-laden anthers, and thus providing no pollination service to the plant.  

Another wasp came by on the same day, also a Mason or Potter Wasp, but this one BugGuide.net identified down to the genus Eudynerus.  

This one went for nectar in the more traditional way, diving down into the disk flowers past the pollen-laden anthers:  

July 23, 2022

And a third wasp also stopped by that day, this one identified by BugGuide.net as a member of the genus Polistes, Umbrella Paper Wasps, Sub-Family Polistinae, Family Vespidae.

Umbrella Paper Wasp, Sub-genus Fuscopolistes

July 23, 2022

None of these wasps returned a second day!  Despite Gaillardia's nourishing riches for other insects, Gaillardia flowers didn't appear to have what wasps were looking for.

Experts in the Kansas Arthropods Facebook group tell me that many things can influence wasps' choice of flowers to feed upon, from the match between their tongues and floral anatomy to the many colors which only wasps can see.   Wasps also want to keep an eye on their surroundings while they eat so hesitate to bury themselves in flowers.   

There are scientific studies showing that parasitic wasps prefer plants in the sunflower family  (Asteraceae), such as Gaillardia--but the wasps above are predatory, not parasitic.    So many factors involved!

It's a question carrying over to next year:  Are wasps really inclined to avoid Gaillardia?  Or did their absence this year represent observer-error or unique coincidences?

So many mysteries!!!