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Despite their importance for nature, wasps are one of the biggest troublemakers for many people. The insect hunters draw attention to themselves, especially towards the end of summer, when they venture closer and closer to people's food because their own food sources are dwindling. If a wasp nest is also found, the calm is usually over. Anyone who wants to remove this wonders whether the wasps hibernate in the nest like bees or not.
Do wasps survive the winter?
A major difference between bees and the species of the subfamily Vespinae is the mode of overwintering. While bees use their hive as winter quarters during the cold season, the wasps completely disintegrate. Bee colonies form so-called winter clusters with the queen in the middle. Whereas young wasp queens leave the wasp nest before winter and seek shelter until the new year. The rest of the tribe and the old queen die and the nest can be occupied by humans over the winter months removed without permission will. The dissolving of the state is carried out by all wasp species that occur in Germany.
Yes, even hornets follow the same course of the year as the other wasp species. Since the Vespa are larger, more peaceful variants, many people forget that these are the same family. That means whether you find a hornet or wasp nest, these will all be gone by the time winter sets in. However, depending on the species, the young queens may return to the same nesting site the next year because they prefer certain locations. This is especially the case with paper wasps. However, when a wasp colony disperses depends on many factors, which are explained in detail below.
tip: Even the cuckoo wasps, including the mountain paper wasp cuckoo wasp (Polistes atrimandibularis), false cuckoo wasp (Dolichovespula adulterina) and Austrian cuckoo wasp (Vespula austriaca) disappear by autumn at the latest. On average, the lifespan of these colonies is even shorter.
Hibernation: expiration
The hibernation and simultaneous dissolution of the wasp colony does not happen overnight. As summer draws to a close, a well-planned process takes place that is related to the animals' natural history. The following steps explain this process in detail:
1. Young queens leave the nest
Depending on the wasp species, the dissolution of the wasp colony before winter begins as early as mid-August and lasts until the beginning of mid-October. This depends on the outside temperature, because this determines the point in time at which the young queens mate, whose departure heralds the "fall" of the nest. With the exception of the following four wasp species, the young queens leave their colonies as early as mid to late August:
- German wasp (Vespula germanica)
- Common wasp (Vespula vulgaris)
- Hornet (Vespa crabro)
- Asian hornet (Vespa velutina var. nigrithorax)
With these, the move out does not begin until the middle to the end of September.
2. Fertilization and winter quarters
The young queens are followed immediately after moving out by the drones, i.e. the male animals, as these are necessary for fertilization. In the state itself only the workers and the old queen remain, who do not hibernate but die over the winter.
After the young queens have been fertilized, the drones die over a period of several weeks, but do not return to the wasps' nest. The queens can even be fertilized several times and then look for sheltered quarters for the winter. These can be, for example, pieces of bark, piles of wood or holes in the ground that have a stable microclimate that is only subject to minor fluctuations. Attics and roller shutter boxes are also welcome.
3. Frostbite
During the cold season, the young queens of the wasps remain hibernating. They lie down on their undersides on the ground and fold their feelers, legs and wings close to their bodies to avoid freezing to death. At the same time, it produces a kind of "antifreeze" (glycerol) that allows it to survive the cool temperatures.
4. Old Queen & Colony Die-off
After the young queens have left, the workers remain in the wasps' nest and continue to take care of young workers, but no longer the old queen. She then leaves the state and dies after a few weeks. The typical lifespan of queens is about a year.
Since the old queen has left the state, no new workers are born. This leads to the complete death of the colony over the next few weeks. The period for the majority of wasp species is between the last week of August and mid-September, which is quite early. Only the species mentioned in step 1 survive until November.
The wasp workers persevere until there are no more larvae to tend or no more food to be found. However, these wasps do not die in the abandoned nests, but rather while trying to find food. As a result, the nests are completely empty in midwinter and can be removed on your own without any problems with nature conservation.
5. Reestablishment of the Wasp State
As soon as spring gets warmer, usually around May, the young queens wake up from their torpor and start forming a new colony. The wasps rarely look for places from the previous year.
On average, eight to ten out of every 10,000 new queens manage to establish a colony in the next year. The others are eaten by birds or other animals, or fall prey to bacteria and fungi when there are temperature fluctuations. The real time of nest dissolution can be significantly delayed, depending on where you live. The outside temperature plays a decisive role, because in warmer regions of Germany the young queens sometimes leave their nest up to two or three weeks later. This is particularly the case in the warm south and west of Germany and the wine-growing regions, where temperatures are higher than in the rest of the country. This means that if you have a wasp nest nearby, you should be particularly careful when it is still quite warm in autumn. Because then there could still be numerous workers in this.
tip: If you see one or two larger wasps in your living room over the winter, they are probably young queens who have moved into their winter quarters in your four walls and have suddenly been woken up by the heat. If this is the case, you should collect them carefully and give them some sugar water to drink. After that, they are slowly acclimated to the cool outside temperatures so that they can fall back into their hibernation.