Yellow jackets have made their home in an abandoned chipmunk's burrow in my backyard. Standing near the small hole in my lawn, I watched as a steady stream of yellow jackets fly in and out of the nest. It is easy to recognize these social wasps with the characteristic yellow and black stripes on their abdomen.
The site of a yellow jackets nest is selected by the queen in early spring after she emerges from winter's hibernation. When she has decided the location is perfect for her new colony, she gets busy making several cubicles from wood fiber she has chewed to create a paper-like pulp. Into each cubicle she lays an egg and then feeds the larvae that hatch from the eggs. Eventually adult workers, which are infertile females, come forth from the cubicles to be the first members of her family. These workers now take over the job of building more cell cubicles and the queen's only job is to lay more eggs. The workers also take on the assignment of feeding the larvae from which will come more workers. Some yellow jacket colonies have been known to have four to five thousand workers.
Yellow jackets have the reputation of being aggressive with a painful sting. The workers have a lance-like stinger with small barbs, and they can sting repeatedly. Some people are allergic to the venom of their sting. According to the National Pest Management Association, stinging and biting insects send over 500,000 people to the emergency room each year. Some of these insect culprits are yellow jackets, which can also make themselves a nuisance at picnics.
But yellow jackets have one redeeming quality. As predatory hunters, they capture and kill many harmful insects to feed their larvae. However, the adults feed on flower nectar, fruit juice and anything sweet. That is why they show up at our picnics. One tip in keeping yellow jackets away from your picnic table is to put something sweet in a small dish and place this away from your table. This will encourage the yellow jackets to congregate at the sweet dish rather than having lunch with you.
By the magic of nature, in late summer some of the yellow jacket larvae will become mature males. The queen and the males will go on a nuptial flight and mate in the air. With the approach of winter the queen will find a secure place in an old stump or in leaf litter to survive the cold weather. All the rest of the colony will die in the freezing temperatures of winter.
The following spring the fertilized queen will find a nice place to begin a new colony and the cycle will begin all over again, but hopefully NIMBY (not in my backyard).
If the chipmunks want to reclaim their living quarters this winter, they will have to do a major job of cleaning house because the yellow jackets must have left their rental apartment a total mess.
