Sitting around? (Chomp!) Back to work!

When a wasp bites nestmates, is it sending a message that translates roughly as “Stop goofing around and do some work”?

That possibility occurred to Sean O’Donnell at the University of Washington in Seattle when he studied one of the so-called eusocial wasps, Polybia occidentalis. This tropical species builds colonies of several hundred wasps that share life’s tasks much as bees do.