I did this picture after dark expecting Yellow Jacket nest activity to be minimal. Imagine my surprise when I found this much happening long after sunset. The top of the nest is approximately 8” below ground level and the excavated soil—is gone.

EXCAVATION IN THE PINES--

I was mowing around the stand of young pines east of the lagoon and noticed an excavation about the size of a large Cantaloupe in an opening between the trees. I was silently chastising a frisky neighbor dog as I mowed closer, then stopped, then reversed course as I saw the real culprits—lots of them.

Yellow Jackets; regarded as some of the more dangerous of the stinging insect pests.

They are social creatures, often building nests underground that can be quite large. Nests are made from a material called carton or paper, produced by the females who combine their saliva with wood fibers to produce their building material.

I would estimate this one to be somewhere between a basketball and a bushel basket in size, judging by the radius of the nest visible in the excavation. It likely is large enough to be inhabited by thousands of workers.

These underground colonies are annual with only inseminated queens over wintering. She will emerge in the spring and start a new nest site--the beginning of the next cycle. She remains in the nest all summer laying eggs and the colony expands rapidly, reaching a size of 10,000 to 15,000 cells. My colony could be reaching this stage now.

At peak size, reproductive cells are built with new males and queens produced. Adult reproductives remain in the nest fed by the workers. New queens build up fat reserves to overwinter. Adult reproductives leave the parent colony to mate. After mating, males quickly die while fertilized queens seek protected places to overwinter.

And the cycle repeats, but, the nests are not used again.

Also, this is one section of yard that, this season, will not be mowed again either.

After all, Yellow Jackets and other wasps are predators of caterpillars, flies and beetle grubs and they are great pollinators. Since this colony is out of the way, we will do as usual and simply let nature take its course.