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BIOLOGY
Wasps only over-winter as Queens,
at the beginning of spring they emerge from the place they have
spent the winter and find a suitable place to build a nest.
She starts by building a small
nest of wood paper, which is a mixture of wood and saliva, this
nest is made up of about 12 hexagonal cells in which she lays
an egg .
She raises these eggs herself
until they emerge as workers (Sterile females).
These workers then take over
the maintenance and expansion of the nest whilst the queen effectively
becomes an egg factory, the colony then undergoes a rapid growth
phase.
The peak of the nest comes in
September, when there can be between five and ten thousand workers
in a nest. At this time fertile males and females will be laid,
as these hatch and mate the females will become next years queens
whilst all the workers and males will die off over the weeks to
come. During this stage when the workers have no purpose they
become more aggressive.
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