| Neutral | Magpye | On Sep 10, 2006, Magpye from NW Qtr, AR
(Zone 6a) wrote:These are powerful and agile wasps, the largest of the group that we know as hornets and yellowjackets. Females can measure up to nearly 1½ inches long.
Although they normally fly during daytime, in humid windless weather workers may fly at night and are attracted to windows of lighted homes, where they may beat themselves against the glass with impressive and frightening force.
It is said .. that they are quite mild mannered and not prone to attack .. however, they will defend their colony when their nest is threatened. The sting is said to be very painful and may cause allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. One study has shown that allergic individuals are at three times greater risk .. of having a dangerous allergic reaction from a European hornet sting than from a honey bee or yellowjacket sting.
It has a large, robust body with a characteristic black and orange striped abdomen. The head, parts of the thorax, and front of the abdomen are patterned in reddish brown coloration. The head is swollen behind the eyes, and ocelli (the small, simple eyes on top of the head) are remote from the rear margin of the head.
Workers usually hunt active insects, which they masticate and feed to the larvae in the cells of the nest combs. They have been known to raid bee hives, taking the bees and their larvae and pupae as food, but leaving the honey.
Workers in search of construction material and sugary liquids have been known to girdle twigs and branches of various trees and shrubs, including lilac, birch, dogwood, rhododendron, and boxwood. The wasps sometimes kill the plants. They also may damage ripe fruits, including apples and peaches.
The European hornet prefers the forest to suburban and urban environments. Because its rate of contact with man is usually quite low in most areas of North America, the chances of being stung are minimal.
The hornets construct paper nests, usually in very sheltered sites above ground. They frequently nest in hollow trees, but they also use attics, porches, sheds, hollow walls of houses, abandoned bee hives, and, rarely, underground cavities. Nests in homes and other man-made structures may present a problem because of the stench they emit. Exposed nests have a complete, thick, brown paper envelop composed of course wood fibers. This envelop is absent from nests in sheltered sites. A typical nest of a mature colony contains 6 – 9 combs with a total of 1500 to 3000 individual cells. The typical colony might consist of 300-500 workers .. while a large mature colony consists of about 1000 workers.
Colonies have an annual cycle. Males and queens are produced in late summer. Workers are active until about mid October, then the colonies die out. Only mated and fertilized queens winter in a state of diapause. These queens reappear in spring, and instead of reusing the old nests, they construct new, small combs, and lay eggs in each of the cells. The workers that result from these eggs enlarge the nest and care for the young through the rest of the season until more males and queens are produced.
As its common name implies, the European hornet is native to central and western Europe, but it is never found north of the 63rd parallel. |
