Reflections from Crumbly Acres: 🐝 Hornets 2022

August 6th I noticed a wasp nest in our big white pine tree. It turned out to be bald-faced hornets, which is a subspecies of yellowjackets.

Bald-faced hornet, Wiki

August 14

August 25

August 27 – video

August 28

August 29

By October, things had slowed down. There seem to be far fewer hornets. We've had a temperature low of -2 C.

Oct. 12th a lady bug landed on the nest.

Oct. 16

As I was walking towards the shed, I noticed what I thought was part of a wasp nest on the ground. My thinking is that a critter got up there! I don't know, it could have been our fisher, weasel, or other nocturnal visitors.

The pieces were all scattered under the nest. This one wasp was the only one I could see. All the cells look empty. It appears as if the queens have mated and the new queens have gone underground as is their way.

Research

From Iowa State U, I found out that there are about 100 - 400 drones in the colony, with one queen. (They build up to 400 nearer the end of summer.) The old queen will lay new queens, they will go off and mate, with the new queens hibernating after mating. The old ones die off in winter.

They have a typical four-stage life span: egg, larvae, pupa and adult.