Window Watchers (May 14, 1954)

hi window Watchers see what I'm pointing at right here can you see something dark inside the net as of the butterfly net that we made right up here and just a few minutes ago this insect came flying around in here it's a week hurry up put up put the butterfly net over and now tiny generous unless you tell us what to do with it well I see this is a loss so you don't want to be careless about this business of getting the wasp into your neck they're into a killing jar see you you do it carefully because you don't want poor things all tangled up in your cheese cloth in fact it's got it look it it's got its mouth its rightful it's just biting that cheese cloth as hard as it can bite there is no there is no insect killer humise in this jar so I didn't have my insect or am i killing jar here the only thing we can do is try to persuade this wasp to get to turn loose maybe we can't even do that but I'll tell you what we can do I say if if there were carbon tetrachloride in the jar then the wasp would soon die and drop off and you haven't hurt your neck a bit oh oh you know I think another thing we'd better do is very good hey good well now we'll we'll perform a death-defying stunt here of or a sting defying stunt of getting the net out of the jar or the java net in there is our wasp all thing it'sit's kind of probably scared shock death yes I think it is no that's one reason why wasps sting they're afraid of you I hold on let me spray them at the real thing what you see they don't know what you're going to do so when you treat and run when you see a wasp or bee the loss for the be to use that you're going to attack it so glam it gets you first hi well I was laying where we're taking the pins out of the winners remember there is Sonny's tiger moth and we will put a label on it here I always want to label your bugs and we'll put it right into the box a you've got a nice bug collection started there yeah by the end of the summer I'll have two boxes full i hope so because you have to keep up with the window Watchers that are collecting cigar boxes full of bugs because this Paul we want to spend a lot of time identifying the insects that you have collected so we'll work on that well now last week tiny you told us that you were going to have some social social termites social insects insects they are and they are termite are in there yep they're right in here our social insect is by commissioned an insect where there are casts or the different castes each do a different type of work and while we have all of those casts in this termite jar you might say we have a film which shows termites much closer up than anything we could show you here so let's look at the film and see what termites really look like now this is a ordinary steel pin in the center of the picture there and those are termite workers just sort of crawling around they're not quite sure what they're supposed to be doing they're actually they're posing for their picture but they didn't know that this is the sawing pin is that really the size yeah I see there's a termite just crossing the head of the pin and you can see that it's about all three or four times as long as the pin is wide six legs they have six legs just like all other insects and they have anything you know the source to termite said that are sort of fighting one another no they're actually either communicating or cleaning one another oh and there's a little termite crawling up to see what that big steel pin is you notice that the little termite looks like the big termite accepted it's smaller the reason is that termites hatch from eggs and they look just like the adult they don't go through the large egg larva pupa and adult stage like butterflies but those things are tremendously old and pointed years and they are among the most interesting I think of of the insect so now you said that they had casting they had cast system to their society or something now of course we're we're talking about the way we classify things I don't know whether the termites really believes that you're a worker and I'm a soldier and she's a queen I don't think they think about it but they just do their job and the job of the worker is different from that of the soldier well now the ones that we just look at on this film the white ones they were workers yes how can we tell a difference between a worker and the queen or wow I have a picture which shows the three castes of termites the winged adult which is the sexual form the one that lays the eggs that's over on the right that's the one that has the wings the soldier is in the center it has a big strong head and very huge jaws and the worker is over at the left of the screen perhaps a little slender and certainly if it has a smaller head but that those are the three castes and each caste has its own job just like all of the other social insects you know are they all white like the worker the the Queen wing the duck is black with the rest of them are white or light yellow like these here but the black ones are the ones that have wings are the only black ones are those the ones that we see or do I see the white ones you you rarely will see the Queen except during swarming and swarming is going on right now the winged adults are coming out in basements and garages out of doors and you'll see a large number sometimes as much as a double handful of these winged termites just milling around on the ground or in the basement stay close to the ground oh yeah and they mate and fly away and then after they found a suitable place to start a new colony they lose their wings they actually break them off did they do it themselves pineda they do it themselves and then the Queen termite has to do her own housework for a while while she lays eggs to produce workers to do the housework sure then after the workers get started the Queen settles down to her major business which is producing eggs that's all yes that's all she does all day long day after day year after year it I imagine gets kind of tires man well it's a year after year how long do tonight's live well no one knows for sure worker termites have been kept alive for seven years seven years Queens probably live longer than that isn't that a long time for you oh yes that was for example will live for about a month six weeks seven years how old are they and how long have they exist well they've been on earth for at least 200 million years because termites almost identical with these have been found in rocks fossil termites have been found in the rocks there are 200 million years old so they are ancient a long time ago yeah when I you said that the soldier termites protected the colony from from their enemies alleged enemy of the term are the worst enemy is ants because ants and termites both live in the ground they both the may try to occupy the same space and when that happens of course there's always a fight and the termites can hold their own pretty well especially these big soldiers with their big jaws well just talking to tell the difference between termites and ants well we have a slide which shows the termite and the ant I think perhaps we'd better look at that right now at the left is the wing termite at the right the winged aunt both of them may have wings they both have six legs but the main difference between them is the fact that the hand has a wasp waist a constriction between yeah between the thorax and the abdomen the termite doesn't have that constriction so that wherever you see a termite or an insect that looks something like an ant in the soil or in wood and it doesn't have that constriction and is white that's a term I answer black or red or brown well no you find them in the would you say what do they eat well they'll eat anything that contains cellulose now here is something that termites have eaten this is a pad of paper OIC and they eat favor because papers made out of wood and here is a piece of wood that termite savvy they will also eat cotton because cotton contains cellulose so those are the things that termites eat we have done a good job on this video it here you notice they eat this out and they leave the hard annual rings because those are just too tough for their jaws they swallow the the wood the theme and then in their stomachs they have little bugs little one celled organisms that digest that would so that the termite can utilize it that's kind of a good deal an 8th route somebody else eats it again for him that's right there or somebody breaks it down for him so that they can utilize oh I see you have this piece of wood here this just fascinates me know how that is the corner of a baseboard along the floor from the outside you see it looks alright because termites rarely break through but on the inside you notice it's all eat now I was a one-inch piece of wood originally and the termites just ate everything looks like that a little bit not a wall board so around the bottom I walls i could put almost two fingers across just about right there's not anywhere near enough room for two fingers well then do they live in this wood yes but they come to the wood but they have their nest in the soil deep in the soil where did you find them well the first place would be looking in a stump we have a picture of that here's an old stump that is really swarming with termites you break that open and you've got termites enough for several termite colonies or you we have another picture showing a termite tube now this tube is just an earthen tube that runs along the wall leading from the soil where they live to the wood where they're going to eat and you might call that a superhighway for termites it's enclosed and it's sheltered so they don't have any difficulty at all I feel good could we make on termites are like this sure just find your termites by putting out a piece of wood or by looking in a stump or by breaking open a tube put some dirt and the termites in a jar put a cellulose sponge in to provide moisture because they must have that and there's your name well what are you going to have for us next week next week it's going to be ants and go wrong we'll be here to talk about ants with you and the winter one well good then you come on back next week and mr. Romney talking about aunt will see you again okay come on you