Wasps nest - do they use it every year ?

[andy12437]

We have a wasps nest and i was wondering will they only use it the once or will they return to it every year, sounds a bit daft i know !

[New Forester]

In the UK wasps (like bumblebees) have annual nests.

 

The fertile females (queens) leave the nest in late summer, mate and hibernate through the winter.  All the infertile females (workers) and males die, and the nest will then be unoccupied (in warmer climates the nest may survive the winter).

 

In spring the females each try to start a new nest.  Often they don't get far, and these small nests can be found in lofts, sheds etc, orphaned when the queen was lost foraging.  However, once the first brood of workers is mature the queen stays in the nest and the workers forage instead.  Gradually the nest grows until in autumn males and new queens are produced.  Wasps are mainly carnivorous, eating insects and suchlike until the autumn when they have little brood to feed -- then they go looking for picnics instead.

 

So the nest itself is not re-used -- however, a new queen may find the same site.  I don't know whether she'd actually use the old nest material though -- I've only found new nests next to old ones.

 

Different species of wasp nest in different places (there are five or six species in Britain, including the hornet) -- trees, mouse-holes, lofts or sheds etc.  There are also hundreds of smaller hunting wasp species which do not make social nests, but live in burrows, woodworm holes, little clay cells or whatever.

 

Incidentally, wasps don't like being looked at.  If you have one buzzing round your beer in the pub garden, instead of flapping at it peer at it closely and it'll fly off.  However, I tried this last spring with a queen hornet (about 5 cm long!), and she just hovered round my face looking back....