Farmers Weekly Review

It happens this time every year, as the first few leaves start to fall from the trees, people see those football-shaped large wonders of nature hanging from their trees — the bald-faced hornet nest.
They inspire all sorts of panic, but it shouldn’t. It is not only an amazing feat of engineering paired with artistry — unless it is low to the ground, or you point it out to kids and they start throwing rocks at it — there is no reason to fear.
I also hear daily comments – live, on the radio, TV and social media — that the “bees have gotten so bad this year and are angry.”
No. Not bees. Bees are not interested in you, either, unless you start to threaten their home, or accidentally step on them. Yellowjacket wasps on the other hand, have a bad day late in the season and can be highly aggressive.
But wasps are also beneficial insects. They are pollinators and apex predators eating smaller bugs that affect our crops like aphids and caterpillars. Less known is, they aid in decomposition, feeding on carcasses of mammals, recycling those nutrients. So, what is a gardener to do?
The answer is usually nothing. Note, I said usually nothing. If someone in your household is highly allergic to stings, that is a different matter altogether. Knowledge is power, so you may not need to eradicate a high up nest, but definitely make that person aware. If there is any question though, safety first. More on that later.
Bald-faced hornets are wide-bodied insects with white faces. That is how they got their name. In old English, the word “balde,” which meant white; not hairless. Think bald eagle, whose head is topped with white feathers. Bald-faced hornets have mostly white faces.
Bald-faced hornet nests especially are usually built high up in trees away from human interaction. These nests, like all of the wasp and hornet nests, are built and used for one season only. Never to be reinhabited again.
Also, all of the members of the hive, with the exception of the queen, live one season. The queen of the social wasps and hornets will soon be leaving the nest to overwinter in leaf litter until next year. As nature is kind, yet cruel, the rest of the members of the hive will usually starve to death. They definitely eventually freeze, but depending on the weather, since insects are cold-blooded organisms, they usually lose the ability to move as the temperatures drop and can’t sustain nutrition.
So, all of those nests up high in the trees that, by the way have been up there all summer, are temporary only. You don’t need to knock it down, throw rocks at it, and absolutely, and most definitely, not set it on fire.
The nests of the paper-making insects are fascinating works of art. They are made from wood pulp bark, leaves and starch in the saliva of the queen who has just emerged from her winter slumber. The nest starts with layers of small honeycomb of cells, made of paper, similar to the shape of beehive cells. The hive consists of two to four layers of comb covered in a paper envelope.
I find it so amazing each year that these nests of the lightest paper withstand whatever blow up Mother Nature throws their way — hail, winds, torrential rain and the occasional derecho. Several nature buffs collect these nests, me included.
But you have to wait for three hard frosts before taking them down and bringing them in. Otherwise, the surprise of warming worker hornets are not something desired.
Bald-faced hornets, like their relatives — the paper wasps and yellowjackets — are social. That doesn’t mean they get together weekly to play cards, but that they have a social system, similar to social bees. There is a queen, workers and drones. It is a caste system. Everyone has a defined job.
The queen’s role is to produce young, the drones to fertilize the queen, and the workers, just like in our system, do everything else. They babysit and rear the young, go out grocery shopping and defend the house. And what thanks do they get? Thanks for working this year of service entitles you to die at the end of the season. Some reward.
Bald-faced hornets and paper wasps are busy with their work and aren’t aggressive unless you threaten their home space, which is usually 10 to 15 feet around their nest. Guards sit atop their nests and will warn you if you get to close.
Then there is the yellowjacket. Once their populations soar in mid-August. They are out for a fight with everyone. They are beneficial like the other wasps and hornets, but late in the summer their numbers are large, and their supplies are low. And they fighting mad.
Yellowjackets nest in the ground, usually in old rodent burrows. If you have ever mowed over one, you know it. The vibrations can drive them out after you like an old-time cartoon. They can be left alone if they are far from human interaction.
Otherwise, you can eradicate the nest. You treat it early morning or late after you have put on long sleeves, long pants with the cuffs tucked into your socks. Powdered insecticides are more effective. You bring a pile of soil, quickly dump the powder in and seal with the soil. Then I recommend a brisk walk away.
The non-social wasps and hornets are called solitary. And that pretty much describes their life. Solitary wasps have a single queen. She feeds on pollen and nectar and is responsible for her own tiny nest. She will make a cell, lay an egg, go out and get some unsuspecting bug, like a caterpillar. She will sting it to anesthetize it, bring it back to her nest and put it with the egg. And then wall off that cell and start the process again.
Even though each queen has her own nest, sometimes the ladies like to live gregariously near each other, making kind of a neighborhood. Solitary wasps have one generation per year. The queen dies at the end of the year, and then next year, everyone hatches and begins their own solitary journey.
The solitary wasps include cicada killer wasp, mud dauber, thread-waisted wasp and golden digger wasps. These wasps really don’t want to interact with humans because they are a family of one.
So, they aren’t aggressive and rarely sting. Best left alone, and like most nature, observe and be amazed.