They are responsible for food collection. Once the first brood of adults has hatched, they take over the nest building duties and caring for the larvae. After a few weeks, they have transformed into adult worker wasps and are sterile.Īdult worker wasps, which are all female, can sometimes lay eggs as well as the queen but these are not fertile and can only produce male wasps (drones). When they are at the right stage of development, they will spin their caps and pupate (just like a caterpillar into a butterfly). ![]() These grubs are still being fed by the adult worker wasps and are not yet ready to pupate into adult wasps. ![]() When the larvae are ready to pupate into adult wasps, they spin a silk cap over the top of their cell as illustrated in the images below - looking closely at the photos you can see the maggot-like wasp grubs within their uncapped cells. In turn, the wasp larvae regurgitate parts of this insect food (chitin which make up insect exoskeletons) producing a sugary liquid which they feed back to the adult wasps. Adult workers will also use nectar from flowers in the spring and early summer.Īs nests start to grow and there are young wasp larvae to be nurtured, the adults catch insect food for the larvae to eat. They are responsible for plant pollination in much the same way as honey bees. When the queens emerge from hibernation, the only source of food for them is nectar from plants and flowers. There is also a lot of biting and forcefulness used within the nest hierarchy. Mandibles are also used for biting other wasps, either in defence if the nest is being attacked, or in attack if another nest is being predated on. ![]() They are also used for stripping and pulping wood for nest construction. These mandibles (which are similar to a crabs claw) are used for catching and dissecting prey which they feed to their young. They have mouthparts that are similar to a honey bee, a series of tubes for sucking liquid such as nectar.ĭo not confuse the mandibles at the front of a wasps head for mouthparts. Adult wasps do not have mouthparts that allow them to eat solid foods. Her hind legs are used to anchor herself in place over winter.Īnother common misconception is that wasps eat insects. Note how she has tucked her middle legs over the top of her wings to protect them. ![]() (The white stuff over the wasp is just sawdust, as we found her in a wood cutting shed) Wings are vital for obvious reasons, but the antennae are equally crucial to a queen wasp as she uses these to probe and detect the cells in the nest before laying eggs. Warm winters are more likely to affect queen wasps as they emerge from hibernation too soon and starve due to lack of food.Īs you can see from the following photos, hibernating queen wasps protect their wings and antennae by tucking them under their bodies. Most hibernating queen wasps do die over the winter, but this mortality is not due to severe weather but predation by other insects such as spiders. Many pest controllers mistakenly believe that hard cold winters will kill hibernating queen wasps. At this time of year, there are no active wasp nests, just queens which will begin to look for a suitable place to build their new nests. As the days begin to warm up, the queen wasps come out from hibernation where they have spent the winter months in a deep sleep.
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