Mostly living in North America, the Western Yellow Jacket is an animal who’s populations explode in warmer months, but somehow they still exist in colder temperatures. Hawaii struggles with these, as they are listed as a major pest there.
Western Yellow Jacket build large nests made of wood fibres, inside a hexagonal paper envelope. Usually they are buried 6-12 inches underground, or in rodent burrows.
They will forage for insects, and dead animals for meat and plant nectar for carbohydrates, mostly using scents to find both! They will also often “rob” honey bee colonies of their honey.
Depending on the size of the colony, the queen will work to feed the larvae at the early stages until there are enough workers to do that work for her, and workers are always worried about cleanliness of the nest.
Every 3-5 years population outbreaks occur where larger than normal numbers of Western Yello Jackets are around, which causes alot of grief to humans that are tasked with picking fruit in orchards. This actually causes substantially hard financial years for big fruit picking companies.
