You may be one of MANY people seeing an abundance of swarming wasps around their homes currently. Though a little scary and somewhat of a nuisance, they actually are not interested in us at all. An interesting bit of information is that each of the wasps you are seeing is a potential queen that overwintered and survived the earlier snows.
In early spring the fertilized females search out raw weathered wooden fences, siding or dead tree limbs from which they chew fibers to construct their nests. The nest will be comprised of individual cells in which she will lay an egg. Once the eggs hatch the larva will be fed a protein diet of insects and caterpillars.
Which wasp becomes “the queen” will be determined by who begins laying eggs and building the nest first. In the event two females begin lying eggs at the same time, the female who is unsuccessful in completing or defending her nest will become subservient to the queen and assist with food gathering and “baby sitting” duties.
The newly hatched wasps are also females and will attend to and defend the nest, larvae and queen. Even the second generation wasps cannot reproduce since males are not present until later in the season. You go girl!! (Just stay away from us!)
