Do Wasps Have Queens?

The quick answer is Yes, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. You could also answer, No, to the question, “Do wasps have queens?”. Even that would be a matter of opinion.

The wasp population is split into social wasps and solitary wasps. While solitary wasps do not have elaborate nests with other working wasps, a female still lays her eggs and is solely responsible for them. That just might be grounds for wasps’ queen status.

Social and Solitary wasps are different in the way they conduct business. Yellow jackets, paper wasps, and bald-faced hornets are wasps that thrive in the social setting. Their network allows them to build large nests which they will aggressively protect. Yellow jackets can be a bigger threat as they will build their nest in the ground. If you happen to come across a yellow jacket nest in the ground you will quickly be greeted with a swarm of vicious stingers.

Solitary wasps don’t have large nests. In their case, the sting is to subdue prey. While aggressive in feeding, solitary wasps generally don’t attack humans. They mostly feed on spiders, crickets, cicadas and caterpillars. As such they are considered beneficial insects. Solitary wasps will build a single nest to lay eggs, feed the larvae, and house the single female wasps.

Regardless of the type of wasps, any of them can make their way into your home. They love sweet things and scents so they will probably gravitate towards your bathroom where they are attracted to soaps or rooms with fragrant candles.

Wasps won’t thrive in your home so if you turn off your lights and open your window, chances are, the wasp will probably leave on its own. If it doesn’t, that could mean the nest is somewhere inside of your home structure. If this has happened to you, please call Kapture Pest Control as soon as possible.

Answering the question: Do Wasps Have Queens?

As mentioned earlier, it depends on whether you’re dealing with social wasps or solitary wasps when it comes down to the answer to “Do Wasps Have Queens?”. It’s also a matter of opinion when it comes to solitary female wasps. If part of your definition of a queen means independence, well then a solitary female wasp is definitely a queen in her own right!

Do Social Wasps Have Queens?

Social wasps do have queens and their colonies also consist of workers to raise more wasps. The worker wasps are made up of sterile females and they are constantly adding to the nest, finding food, and protecting it from predators.

It takes a village to run a nest full of social wasps. These wasps have queens that are only successful when everyone is doing their job. She can’t function on her own like the independent solitary female wasps. The queen produces a pheromone that shuts down the workers’ fertility so that their behavior will stay focused and regulated.

In the social wasps’ lifecycle, every spring a new colony is started by a single queen. As the nest is built up, the wasps begin increasing in numbers as more and more worker wasps are created. Once we move into summer, the nest begins to become noticeable. This is because as the colony grows the nest grows and the wasp queen is busy laying hundreds of eggs a day.

At the end of the season once the weather turns colder, the male wasp mates with the queen and dies. This process will produce a new king. As it gets colder all the worker wasps die off. The wasp queen, however, hibernates over winter to create a new colony in the spring. So do Social wasps have queens? Yes!

Do Solitary Wasps Have Queens?

Solitary wasps don’t create colonies and nests like the social wasps. Instead, each female makes her own nest and provides it with food for their offspring. Since it’s not a colony, there are no worker wasps to help.

The lifecycle is also a bit different. For solitary wasps, the larvae and pupae survive through the winter. Then the next spring the females mate with male wasps and start their nest to create young ones. The answer to “Do wasps have queens” in this instance—is no.

What Wasps Eat & What Eats Wasps

Aside from sweet things, some wasp species also prey on invertebrates, such as spiders, ants, flies, caterpillars, and even bees. This is the majority of what’s fed to the larvae. They may not make honey, but some collect honeydew by siphoning the sap directly from the tree. They do that by inserting their mouth-like parts into the trunk of the tree turning the wax-like droplets to almost pure sugar. Since the wasps will reduce the sap by 90 percent for five months of the year, they compete with other species that feed off of it as well.

Worker wasps can’t digest much of the food that they get. As a result, when wasps have queens, most of it’s passed on to her or the larvae by the nest workers. The nest workers then wait for the larvae to release a pre-digested saliva-or “soup” and that’s what establishes the worker-larvae bond.

There are some animals that do eat the wasp. Dragonflies, centipedes, and robber flies plus some species of birds and mammals like to eat them too. In some parts of Britain, badgers destroy whole nests to get a small buffet from the combs. Weasels and mice also like to diet on early stage wasps nesters.

Fun Facts About Wasps

• Interestingly the male mud dauber will protect the tunnel while the female leaves to look for food. This is the extent of their socialization. Cicada killer wasps will rely on a male for mating but will create her own hole just for her and her eggs.
• Aside from the continuous stinging ability, there are a few other ways in which they differ from bees. Bees drink liquid while wasps actually chew food. They don’t make honey or store food. Even though some do help pollinate, they don’t collect pollen.
• Wasp venom releases pheromones that trigger other wasps’ aggression. When they’re triggered, they quickly swarm. Even solitary ones call for back-up in that way. This also happens when other solitary or social groups of wasps try to invade their nests. Even most animals instinctively avoid wasp nests.
• Wasp venom contains several different ingredients. The primary one being protein, which is what many people have the allergic reaction to. It also contains serotonin, histamine, and kinin. It’s the histamine and kinin that makes the sting painful. The latter helps to slow muscle contractions, lowers blood pressure and increases capillary absorption. That’s why it’s so effective at killing prey. Males do not have stingers, only the females are able to sting but it still isn’t worth the risk to try and handle one.
• Wasps have very limited lifespans. The workers have the shortest for up to 22 days. The drones, about a month or close to it. Finally, if wasps have queens within a species, they usually live for a full year from the time that they hatch.
• Like with bees, wasps have queens that are usually bigger than the workers. This is because of their egg laying ability—they need a lot of fat stored for winter hibernation. As a result, they receive twice as much food as the workers and drones.
• Wasps make excellent fliers. The workers fly for hundreds of meters while searching for food. Most queens or female solitary wasps can fly hundreds of kilometers while searching for a place to nest. Their wings are made out of chitin, which is basically an extension of their skeletons covered by veins, and can make up to 247 beats per second.

Kapture Can Help

The wasps that have queens and the ones that don’t equally do a lot of good outdoors. However, if a wasp gets trapped indoors or happens to build a nest in or near your home, the situation can turn dangerous very quickly. It means they’re in a competition with you that neither you nor the wasps understand. Especially if wasps have queens. As a result, aggression can quickly become mutual and it could turn into a painful medical emergency for you or someone in your home.

Again, please don’t try to remove an active nest on your property or try to find a wasp queen on your own. Let Kapture Pest Control take care of that problem. If you have any reason to believe you’re having an issue with wasps, please contact Kapture today.

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