Yellow Jacket

Yellowjackets are often mistaken for bees but they are in fact a type of wasp. If you’ve ever had an insect try and get at your soda or food outside chances are it was a yellowjacket. Around 70% of all stings are from yellowjackets and this makes sense considering how aggressive they can be. Although a lot of stinging insects are yellow and black, the yellowjacket has a certain yellow black stripped pattern on its body depending on type as well as a distinct side to side flight motion before it lands. They vary in size depending on the type of yellowjacket and are anywhere from ½" to ¾" in length. In Wisconsin there are around 19 different types of yellowjacket, each with its own signature yellow black pattern.

A colony of yellowjackets usually live in the ground or in the walls of a house. These wasps are social insects with a queen and sterile female workers who gather food and building material for the larva inside the nest. The nest begins with a single queen in the early spring who does all the work herself until her workers hatch. The workers then gather protein to feed the larva during the summer. The protein fed to the larva is turned into sugars that feed the adult workers. Later in the year as the nest population booms as well as its size, the queen begins to run out of eggs, the larva can no longer produce enough sugar for the large population of workers and that’s when the worker’s diet starts to include sugars found out in the wild. The reason these wasps start to bother people with soda is because they are beginning to starve.

Yellowjackets by themselves are annoying but when you encounter a colony it can be very dangerous. With a population in the thousands from one colony they have the numbers to quickly and effectively defend their home. Different things can trigger a nest to attack, vibrations from a lawn mower, pulling weeds in a garden, or simply just walking to close to a nest entrance are many of the common ways unlucky individuals learn about yellowjackets for the first time. These wasps can sting multiple times unlike the honey bee, and the yellowjacket does not die when it stings. Their stinger is also serrated, making penetrating skin and obstacles like clothing easier. If the nest is in a location that cannot be avoided, extermination is often the best option. Please do not hesitate to contact our office if you suspect you have yellowjackets.