Wasps and hornets food consists of nectar or other sugary soltions such as honeydew and the juices of ripe fruits. They also feed on bits of caterpillars or flies that are caught and partially chewed before presenting to their young. Hornets may be seen amost any summer day engaged in their winged pursuit of flies.
Wasps and hornets have a lance-like stinger and can sting repeatedly. When a wasp or hornet is near you, slowly raise your hands to protect your face, remaining calm and stationary for a while and then move very slowly away. Never swing, strike or run rapidly away since quick movement often provokes attack aned painful stings. Restrain children from throwing rocks or spraying nests with water. Avoid creating loud noises and disturbances near the nest.
When outdoors, avoid using heavily scented soaps, shampoos, perfumes, colognes, after-shaves and other cosmetics. Avoid shiny buckles and jewelry . cover exposed skin and wear gray, white, or tan rather than bright colors.
Also remember that if a wasp or hornet gets into the automobile while driving, never panic. It wants out of the car as much as you want it out. Slwly pull over off the road, and open the car windows and doors.
Their Growth Stages
Colonies are anual with only inseminated queens overwintering. Fertilized queens overwinter in protected places such as houses and other strudfture, hollow logs, in stumps, under bark, in leaf littler, or in soil cavities. Queens emerge during the warm days of late April or early May, select a nest site and build a small nest in which eggs are laid. One egg is laid in each cell. When larvae are ready to pupate, cells in the nest are covered with silk, forming little domes over the individual openings. Larvae pupate, emerging later as small, infertile females called “workers”. By mid-June the first adult workers emerge and assme the tasks of nest expanion, foraging for food, caring for the quen and larvae and defending the colongy.
Remember with wasps, the nest is the work of a sigle female, has a single layer or tier of cells ad is not enclosed by envelopes. With hornets, the nests usual consist of a number of stories or tiers, one below the other and completely enclosed by shperical walls. Eakch cell may be used for two or three sucdcessive batches of brood.