Bald-faced Hornet

Size:

About 1 inch in length.

Color:

Bluish-black with white markings on its face, thorax and abdomen.

Behavior:

Bald-faced hornets are not true hornets at all; they are aerial yellow jackets. This hornet constructs paper nests made from wood harvested from logs and trees. The nest of the bald-faced hornet will take on a football shape, growing larger with time. Some nests may measure up to two feet in length and contain hundreds of worker wasps. The nests last one year. Each year in the fall, a hornet nest produces numerous queens that fly out to find a protected site (e.g., under loose bark) to overwinter. The following spring, each queen finds a suitable site in a tree or shrub to begin constructing her nest. She forms a small paper nest inside in which she builds a paper “comb” and raises her first brood of larvae. The workers that emerge from that brood begin foraging for food, enlarging the nest, caring for the young and defending the colony. Hornets will aggressively attack and sting any intruder threatening or disturbing the nest.