Similar to the Giant Hornet shown above are the Yellow Jacket and the Bald-faced Hornet, which are the common hornets to Long Point Country.
The true “hornet” is the wasp Vespa crabro, common on the east coast of the United States, where it is also called the giant
hornet. This wasp, introduced from Europe in the mid-1800s, constructs its nest of hexagonal cells inside hollow trees. Wasp
nests are paper, made of the partially digested wood and plant fiber. Hornets may emerge from their nests at night and cluster
around sources of light. Like other wasps, hornets have a painful sting.
A single hornet or wasp begins construction on a nest that may eventually house more than 500 adults. The queen lays four or five eggs in
a small comb protected by several layers of papery material (above, left.) When the eggs hatch, she forages for caterpillars to
feed the developing larvae and for the wood fibers that, chewed and matted with saliva, will form new layers for her nest. The
process is a deliberate and precise one: (below, left) the queen measures the dimensions of her nest with her antennae. Under
her continued care, the larvae pupate and emerge from their cells as workers. It is their job to continue the nest’s expansion,
leaving the queen to egg laying. By the end of the summer, a large nest (below, right) contains males, female workers, and a
number of specially nurtured new queens, which leave the nest, beginning their own nests come springtime.
