Honeybees are relatively quiet and almost cute as they go about their work. Wasps, hornets and yellow jackets, on the other hand, are noisy and aggressive. People don’t like them because they build nests near homes and can damage shrubs and trees. Mostly, though, people are afraid of their painful stings. And even worse, they live everywhere except Antarctica!
Wasps do have a useful purpose though. Wasps are fierce predators and they hunt and eat almost every insect pest that harms crops. Wasps eat grasshoppers, aphids, flies and other bees. They also eat nectar, tree sap and fruit. Some wasps eat human food, which is why they can be a nuisance at picnics. Wasps make nests from paper. They chew up strips of bark and spit it out again to form a rough paper. Some wasps make nests in basements, sheds or dark, cool places. You should get rid of the nest as fast as you can because, unlike bees, wasps can sting as many times as it wants. A queen starts a new colony each spring. She raises a few worker wasps first to make the nest larger and bring food. Then she starts laying eggs. A colony can grow to 50,000 wasps in one summer. In the fall, all the wasps die except for a few new queens. The new queens spend the winter in an old log or burrow. In the spring, they make new colonies. There are 4,000 kinds of wasps in the United States. Typically, wasps are most active during the day and usually return to their nests at dusk. These pests are often seen flying around during the second half of summer and early fall when the colonies search for food that will sustain their queens during the winter. Ashleigh
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