Wasp

Wasps do not swarm. New colonies appear in the spring due to the fact that the queen lays eggs, caresses the workers, and gradually the colony of wasps increases. At the end of summer, a young generation of females and males appear in the nest, which go on mating flights. After fertilization, the females hibernate, and the males die.

Wasps choose a wide variety of places to build their nests. Nests of wasps are found in the hollows of old trees in the forest, on tree branches, in garden compost, mailboxes, abandoned burrows of voles and mice, under the roof of the house, in the attic. They often attach nests to window frames.

In spring and summer, when many small insects appear in nature, among them garden and household pests, wasps become useful rather than harmful insects. Worker wasps suck flower nectar and other sweet plant juices. At the beginning of autumn, there are fewer and fewer small insects, so wasps fly into residential premises in search of food. The function of the workers is to feed the larvae and obtain food for the queen. The larvae regurgitate droplets of liquid, which the workers feed on.

Common wasps use two methods of protection. The passive way is their bright warning coloration, consisting of transverse yellow and black stripes, which scare away birds, lizards and small mammals. Enemies quickly learn to associate this type of coloring with the unpleasant taste of the prey and after several attempts give the wasps peace. The second active method of self-defense is a sting. The stinger is a tube that has no serrations. After the wasp sticks its stinger into the skin of an opponent and injects its poison, it does not die because it easily pulls the stinger out of the skin and can use it again.

Wasps can live both alone and in colonies. In social wasps, queen queens lay eggs, from fertilized eggs female workers are born, males appear from unfertilized eggs and do not have stingers. Larvae feed on insects, but adult wasps eat mainly fruit and sugar. In winter, the fertilized female hibernates, other wasps die.