Inside a Wasp Nest? The Structure and Appearance

The wasps inside will attack anyone who gets close to their nest in addition to pestering you if you try to spend time outside.

It is however fascinating when you come to find out how complex and interesting inside a wasp nest is. Let us now find out!

 

What Does the Inside of a Wasp Nest Look Like?

These photographs show the unique papery walls of wasps’ nests, made from chewed wood pulp and saliva.

As a general rule, wasp nests are located somewhere safe and accessible to the outside world. Wasp nests can be found in a variety of places, including wall cavities, attics, eaves, bird boxes, sheds, and even holes in the ground.

The flight path of returning worker wasps can help you locate a wasp nest on your property or in your garden if you keep an eye out for them.

As the number of wasps increases in late summer, this becomes easier.

In contrast to wasp and hornet nests, honey bee swarms will have no paper surrounding them and will be a large cluster of bees hanging together.

 

Read also: How to Find a Yellow Jacket Nest in 10 Simple Steps

 

How Is Inside a Wasp Nest Made?

It is the queen wasp that initiates this procedure, and the workers are the ones that carry it out. The little pieces of chewed-up wood that are piled together to make the cells are what you are referring to as the “architectural artwork,” and it is all the product of the wasps putting the pieces together.

During the construction process, the hexagonal cells are joined together a little bit like plates with column supports, and there is a gap between each of them.

Wasps can navigate across the levels of hexagonal cells by using this gap, which functions similarly to a ‘gangway’ or hallway.

An exterior covering that wraps around this structure gives it the appearance of a ball, as shown in the picture that came before this one.

Every single one of the worker wasps, even the queen, contributes something to the final product of this labor of love.

Each wasp egg is laid in one of the cells of the hexagonal structure, where it will continue to develop until it hatches as a fully formed adult wasp.

Wasp Nest Building Process

Every season, the wasp nests are completely reconstructed from the ground up, and the queen wasps will emerge from hibernation somewhere between January and March, depending on the climate.

It all begins with a queen, who awakens in the spring after having spent the winter sleeping (having mated the previous year before hibernating).

The wasp queen sets to work collecting teeny-tiny shavings of wood, which she then chews into a pulp to create a substance that she uses to produce the first few perfectly formed cells in the pattern of hexagons.

These queen wasps will soon be on their way to locate a suitable nesting site for the upcoming year, which is frequently located in inconvenient areas close to our homes.

After the Queen Wasp has located an area that is appropriate for the construction of her wasp nest, she will begin to collect wood from various sources, such as fences or garden furniture, which she will then combine with her saliva to become paper.

She will construct a small paper wasp nest that is shaped like a golf ball, and inside of it, she will make approximately 10–20 egg chambers.

The queen wasps will then deposit their eggs in these chambers and tend to them; once the eggs have been fertilized and the young wasps have hatched, the queen will stop leaving the nest.

It will be these new “worker” wasps’ task to give food and materials to construct the wasps’ nest even larger, and from this point forward.

The Queen wasp will become an egg-production machine! She then closes each of the cells when she has finished laying an egg in it.

She continues doing this until the first eggs hatch into larvae, then pupate, and finally emerge as adults. When the young wasps reach the age where they are independent enough to leave the nest, they immediately set out to find food for the wasp larvae that are still within the nest.

In addition to providing food for the developing wasp larvae, the worker wasps continue the process of building the nest from where the queen left off.

However, because of this, the worker wasps are now in charge of completing the nest while the queen is preoccupied with laying eggs.

 

Read also: Bald-Faced Hornet Nest Removal

 

How Big Is a Wasp Nest Inside?

Wasps will keep working on expanding the size of their nests through the summer and into the late fall even after the season has ended.

We typically start finding “giant” wasps’ nests anywhere between the end of September and the beginning of October.

These can frequently have a diameter of more than one meter, and in some cases can approach two meters!

This photograph was taken of a nicely built wasp nest that was slightly larger than a beach ball when we took it down a few years ago. It was about the size of a beach ball.

Although it wasn’t anywhere close to being the biggest wasp nest we’ve ever taken down, it was still incredibly remarkable. There may be approximately 10,000 wasps living in a nest of this size.

 

What Is Eaten Inside a Wasp Nest?

Wasp workers bring back other insects and insect larvae for the ‘baby wasp’ larvae to consume, but the adult wasp workers don’t eat the same thing as the larvae they feed to. This is an interesting aspect of the life cycle of the wasp.

Instead, the worker wasps obtain their nutrition from a sugary substance secreted by the wasp larvae. So, workers feed wasp larvae, and wasp larvae feed adult wasps.

 

Read also: WSDA Removes Giant Asian Hornet’s Nest

 

How Do I Describe the Grubs Inside Wasp Nest?

First, the Queen wasp will place a single egg in each cell, and over time, that egg will hatch into a wasp grub, which will require the “housekeeping” worker wasps to provide it with continual care.

These grubs are quite similar to the stage of a butterfly’s life cycle known as the caterpillar, which marks the completion of all stages of growth. Consequently, individuals experience extreme hunger throughout this time.

Wasp grubs produce a cocoon-like covering over the top of the egg chamber in which they will pupate after reaching the appropriate size.

This maggot-like larva will develop into an adult worker wasp inside this covered egg chamber known as a “Capped Cell” and within the wasp nest itself. This adult worker wasp will play an important role in the colony’s success.

 

Conclusion

We’ll start with the paper wasp nest because that’s the most likely one you’ll come upon. A 12-foot-long nest documented by the Guinness Book of World Records is the largest of these nests, which are normally placed on trees or buildings.

In a paper wasp nest, each cell is designed to house an individual wasp, from egg to adulthood. As soon as a wasp egg hatches, the cells in which it is located are sealed off.

Moreover, the cells are hexagonal, allowing the wasps to squeeze as many cells as possible into a tiny area while still maintaining structural integrity.

When the egg hatches, the larva will have food that the wasps left nearby when they laid the egg.

The workers will then tend to the larva, dropping insects and sometimes whole caterpillars for them to eat.

After some time, the larva will transform into a pupa and then into an adult after undergoing metamorphosis.

To provide the best conditions for the development of the young wasps, the nest must be well insulated to maintain an appropriate temperature and humidity level.

Since the wood pulp is a natural building material, wasps will use it. One tiny entryway with many layers of cells is all that the nest has. Thanks for reading!

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