WASP LIFECYCLE

A single-mated queen emerges from hibernation in the early spring. She establishes her nest in a cavity in the ground or a tree, and as she builds each cell, she lays an egg in it.

After about 30 days, her first offspring – the workers – emerge as adults. They’re all female at this point. The workers takeover the foraging, brood care and nest building and maintenance duties; the queen becomes a stay-at-home egg-laying machine.

After a few days carnivorous larvae will hatch from the newest eggs. The adult workers bring insects back to the nest to feed to the hungry larvae, which offer a sugary reward to the workers, via a process called trophallaxis. The larvae grow over a couple of weeks before they spin their pupal cap and pupate.

Over the next couple of months, the colony will grow, possibly to include thousands of wasps, depending on the species. Once the colony is big enough, the queen will switch to laying a sexual brood: these are males and the sexual females capable of becoming next year’s queens.

When the sexual brood emerges, they leave the nest to mate and then find somewhere to hibernate over the winter (lofts are a popular choice). After this point, the nest has served its purpose but the workers are still alive with no brood to feed – this is when they start to bother you (see box page 40).