Wasps
and yellow jackets are the most common
stinging insect we exterminate. They are
social insects that produce new nests of
paper each year with the help of wood
and saliva. A colony is started by a
queen, which is a fertilized female. The
queen carries out all of the duties and
chores of building a new colony;
additionally, she feeds and develops her
young. Later in the season, as the
colony size rapidly increases, wasps are
raised to assist colony development. At
the end of the season, the nest is
abandoned and the wasps disperse to find
protection during the winter.
For food, wasps like insects and can
therefore be helpful to gardeners by
eating caterpillars and other
plant-destroying insects. Some yellow
jackets are scavengers and become a
nuisance when they hang around garbage
or outside events that involve food.
Adult worker wasps have characteristic
black and yellow patterning on the
abdomen. They have a black head and
thorax. The fore and hind wings are
connected, giving the appearance that
wasps have only one wing per side. Their
stingers differ from those of bees since
they may be used multiple times (they do
not fall out after stinging).
Wasps (yellow jackets) build their nests
underground in rodent burrows and in
dark enclosed areas of buildings such as
crawl spaces and voids between walls.
Their presence is most noticeable at the
end of the season when there are large
numbers of wasps scavenging.
Another form of wasp is the hornet,
which is stout-bodied, dark-colored, and
marked with white stripes. Sometimes,
hornets are marked with yellow and
resemble large yellow jackets. Hornets
make large, gray nests in trees, shrubs,
or in the eaves of homes. They pose more
of a threat with their appearance than
with the actual harm they cause: they
only attack when their nest is
disturbed.
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