When I came back from my vacation in early August, we had an impressive addition to the Visitor Center’s building: a large hornet nest. Apparently it was already under construction back in early July, but it was small enough then that it escaped my notice. But by the second week of August it was over a foot long, and it has continued to grow since then.
Many visitors have commented on the impressiveness of this nest. As one walks down our driveway to the building, it is often the first thing one sees. For a while, it even looked like a sculpted face of a woman, created by some long ago master of the marble form. Today it looks more like the face a man, with a big bulbous nose and a serious frown. Most visitors call it a paper wasp nest, and that is not surprising, since paper wasps also create papery nests on buildings. But this nest was made by bald-faced hornets, and I’ll share with you some of the differences between these insects.
First off, paper wasps, yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets are all technically wasps, and they are all in the same family: Vespidae. Members of this family are distinguished from other wasp families by the way their wings are held when at rest: folded and slightly to the side. They all have similar life cycles. The fertilized queen overwinters and come spring she sets out to build a small nest from masticated wood fibers. After a few cells are built, she lays her eggs inside. The larvae hatch, the queen feeds them, and when they pupate, the queen has a few helpers, all of which are sterile females. More cells are built by the queen and her staff, and the queen lays more eggs. This continues throughout the summer. As the season winds down, the queen lays a final batch of eggs that develop into males and non-sterile females. The old queen and her workers die off, the new queens mate with the males, the males die and the now-fertilized queens seek shelter for the winter and await spring.
The major differences that you and I will notice arise in the structure of the nests. Paper wasp nests are a series of cells that are exposed to the elements. Picture a papery honeycombed structure – that’s about it. The queen makes it by chewing up bits of wood and other fibers and forming them into cells. Hornets build cells, too, but their cells are covered with an external wall – the upside-down tear-shaped papery nest that we see in trees and under our eves. Yellow jackets build their nests underground, and like their cousins the hornets, they surround the cells with papery walls.
Most of these insects are black with yellow stripes, but the nest at the VIC was made by bald-faced hornets, Dolichovespula maculate. These insects are distinctive because they are black and white. If you look closely, you will note that the face of each of these hornets is also white, hence the name. “Bald” does not mean “hairless.” Well, it does today, but the original word was “probably from Celt. bal ‘white patch, blaze’ especially on the head of a horse or other animal,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. So, “bald eagle” means white eagle, “bald-faced hornet” means white-faced hornet and so on.
Bald-faced hornets and yellow jackets are notorious for their aggressive nature. Like many people, they have a large personal space (around the nest), and if you enter it, be prepared for retaliatory actions. If you see these insects just flying around in gentle weaving patterns, they are probably foraging and not interested in you. In fact, bald-faced hornets are actually considered to be rather shy when not defending the nest. If, however, they are flying directly at you, and at great speed, then you know they mean business, and it is time to make yourself scarce. Good luck.
As the chilly nights of autumn approach, activity slows down at wasp nests. Nests built in or near the ground often become food for other animals, like raccoons and bears. Once temperatures have hovered around freezing for several days and nights, it is likely that any remaining insects inside have perished. Now it is safe to remove the nest, and even to take a look inside. Old wasp nests make interesting decorations in houses, and great educational tools, espcially for children.
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