Hornets

Social wasp fast facts

Queens and females have stings, but males cannot sting
Adults feed on sweet liquids
Larvae feed on insects caught and cut up for them by the workers
Hornets are the rarest of the British social wasps, and easily recognised as they are yellow and brown in colour, and larger than the common German wasp
In Europe the hornets have a yellow head unlike the orange head of the British hornets

Hornet Nests

On the right drawing of a hornet's nest (Vespa crabro). Hornets' preferred nesting site is in an old tree. The nest is similar to a wasp's, i.e. it is constructed of chewed wood mixed with saliva. The wood is obtained from unpainted fence posts, fences, tree trunks, and garden furniture that is unvarnished or treated.

Unlike the social bees, hornets have no wax glands and construct their nests out of chewed wood mixed with their own saliva.

A successful hornet nest has about 200 workers at most, but many have far fewer.

Hornet body lengths are, queens are 29 - 38 mm, workers 22 - 24 mm, and males 29 - 35 mm.

Vespa cabro, hornet nest showing the individual cells

Like bumblebees workers maintain the nest at a steady temperature of around 30^oC regardless of the outside temperature.

Hornet Food

Hornet grubs are carnivorous, the adults bring them prey which consists mainly of other insects. This is chewed up into a paste by the workers and queen and fed to the grubs. As many of these prey items are regarded as "pests" by gardeners, it is clear that the hornet should be regarded as the gardener's friend.

Adult hornets prefer sweet foods such as nectar, and as the adults feed the grubs the grubs exude a sweet liquid which the adult wasps lap up. Towards the end of summer when the queen has stopped laying eggs and all the grubs have hatched into adults, there is no more need for the adult hornet to bring back insect prey, and no grubs to give the adults the sweet substances they crave. So the adults go out and search for sweet substances.

Flight speed of hornets

Hornets are speedy fliers with a flight speed of 6.0 metres per second and 100 wing beats per second. Compare this with other insects.They are expert fliers and can fly up, down, forwards and backwards.

Hornet larvae

The larvae are carnivorous eating chewed up bits of insects fed to them by workers. In return the grubs exude a sweet secretion in their saliva which is lapped up by the adult hornets.

The lifecycle is similar to that of bumblebees, and the queen will have mated the previous summer/autumn.