How fast do yellow jackets reproduce

The life cycle of the yellow jacket nest begins in winter, when fertilized yellow jacket queens go into hibernation. Queens hibernate in covered natural locations such as tree stumps and hollow logs, although they may also choose manmade structures for shelter.

In spring, the queen will emerge and begin to build a nest from plant fibers that she chews, making a type of paper. When the nest is started, she begins to lay her eggs. After eggs hatch into larvae, the queen feeds her young with scavenged meat, fish and other insects. As adults, these first offspring are sterile female workers that expand the nest, search for food and care for the queen and her young. After her first generation matures, the yellow jacket queen remains inside the nest laying eggs for the rest of the summer.

At its height, a colony may contain up to 5,000 worker wasps. In the fall, cells will contain larvae ready to become adult males and fertile females. These males and females will leave their colonies to mate. After mating, males die and the fertilized females go in search of hibernation locations. Worker wasps perish in winter, leaving the hibernating queen to begin anew in spring. While nests may last through winter if built in sheltered areas, they will not be used again.

An exception to the normal life cycle occurs in warmer climates that typically do not experience prolonged temperatures below freezing, such as Florida, Texas, etc. Nests can continue to grow in these warmer climates for more than a season and reach enormous nest sizes of 100,000 or more workers.

How Big Does a Yellow Jacket Nest Get?

Queen Yellow Jacket

Yellow Jacket Bees

Western Yellow Jacket Wasps

Yellow Jacket Stings

Yellow Jacket Traps

i Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images

Yellow jackets, although harmful and sometimes deadly to humans, are beneficial to have near gardens, as they feed on common garden pests. These insects become more of an issue for humans in the late summer, when adult colonies are numbered in the thousands in preparation for winter. The life cycle of yellow jackets includes four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.

Egg

Newly fertilized queens are the only colony member to hibernate over the winter. In springtime, the queen yellow jackets emerge from hibernation and begin searching for a suitable place to build a nest and begin a new colony. Nests are typically built in places such as sheds, attics, timber piles, rock walls or in old rodent nests. The nests are constructed of saliva mixed with chewed wood or vegetation pulp. These newly constructed nests typically hold up to 45 cells, which act as rooms for the eggs. The queen protects her eggs until they hatch as larvae.

Larva and Pupa

Once the eggs hatch, the yellow jackets are in larval form. Resembling worms, the yellow jackets use this stage to gain nutrients as they begin to growing limbs and wings. The queen solely dedicates her time to feeding the larvae scavenged fish, meat and other insects until they pupate. After pupating, or developing adult features in protective pupal cases, they stay in this inactive transition for approximately three weeks until they emerge from their pupal cases as adults.

Adult

The first adults to emerge from their pupal cases are sterilized female yellow jackets. These females take over the role of feeding the larvae and the queen herself, as she continues to lay eggs over the summer. As more eggs mature and become adults, they assume other roles in the colony as adult workers. Roles such as searching for food, feeding the queen and defending the colony are fulfilled by the adult yellow jackets while the queen continues to lay eggs. Male wasps begin to mate with females and soon die, while new queens go off to hibernate. Winter conditions destroy the nests and yellow jackets must start anew in the spring.

Variations

By late summer, typical yellow jacket colonies can have more than 5,000 wasps. Warmer climate areas, such as Florida or Texas, often see increased numbers of colonies, as there are no freezing temperatures to destroy nests and food sources of yellow jackets. These colonies sometimes grow up to 100,000 adult workers. According to Clemson University, in 1991 a colony of 250,000 yellow jackets was found in Charleston County, South Carolina. The nest was believed to have been active for more than one year.

References

Resources

Photo Credits

• Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images

Writer Bio

Amanda Williams has been writing since 2009 on various writing websites and blogging since 2003. She enjoys writing about health, medicine, education and home and garden topics. Williams earned a Bachelor of Science in biology at East Stroudsburg University in May 2013. Williams is also a certified emergency medical technician.

How many Yellow Jacket are in a nest?

Do yellow jackets come back to the same nest every year?

What's the life cycle of a yellow jacket?

How long do yellow jackets stay around?

How many queens are in a yellow jacket nest?

What time of year are yellow jackets most aggressive?