The native, ground nesting, beetle hunting philanthine wasp Cerceris fumipennis Say is in development as a biosurveillance tool to detect Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) and other pest Buprestidae threatening the forests of North America (Marshall et al. 2005; Careless and Marshall 2010; Nalepa and Swink 2011). As part of that effort the North Carolina (NC) Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services has been working to determine the phenology and life history of C. fumipennis in the state, primarily to determine its activity overlap with prey species of interest. An examination of specimens in the NC State University Insect Museum indicated that C. fumipennis had been collected in Wake County, NC, as early as 24 May and as late as 22 September between 1921 and 1982, and Kurczewski and Miller (1984) noted that C. fumipennis probably has a partial second brood in the south. Observations of wing wear of C. fumipennis females in Wake County during 2009 suggested that there may be either an extended emergence of a single generation, or that more than one generation per year occurs in the state. During the third week of July, females with completely intact wings as well as females with severely damaged wing margins were both present in the same nesting aggregation. In 2010 a study was conducted at that aggregation, a baseball diamond in the Raleigh City Parks system, to determine if wing wear in C. fumipennis may be positively correlated with female age. Shortly after nests began appearing at the site (30 May), females were captured and given a unique mark on the thorax using DecoColor opaque paint markers (Fig. 1a). A picture of each marked female’s right wing was taken with a Sony Cybershot JHR 24: 43–46 (2012)