[Pollinator] Yes, some Chinese Eat Immature Wasps

[Peter Bernhardt]

Some of you may have heard that the Chinese eat the larvae or pupae of at
least one species of social wasp.  It appears to be true.  Here is a basket
of sliced rounds of a Vespula (?) nest going for sale in an open air market
in downtown LiJiang.  I took this photo on Saturday while we were shopping
for fresh fish for dinner.  This market services a number of residential,
apartment complexes.  Dr Ren Zong-Xin, my research colleague, grew up in
the hills of Dali county.  He says the young stages are removed and served
fried.  As you can see, the occupants of a number of these cells are past
their prime.  I have other photos of the same basket at other distances.
The man who was selling it also had much smaller baskets of wild mushrooms
(chanterelles and boletes).  The winged adults may be the same species
known to pollinate one of the rarer Coelogyne orchid species and a very
common bellflower in the genus, Codonopsis. See the following link.

http://www.amjbot.org/content/early/2014/10/14/ajb.1400075.full.pdf+html
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