Yellow jackets are beneficial around home gardens and commercially grown fruits and vegetables at certain times because they feed on caterpillars and harmful flies. When the populations peak in late summer and early fall, the yellow jackets' feeding habits become a problem. At this time of year, they have a healthy appetite for many of the same foods and drinks we eat. Yellow jacket stings can result in a life threatening situation if the person is allergic to the venom.

Identification: The yellow jacket worker is about ½ inch in length with alternating yellow and black bands on the abdomen.

The yellow jacket has a smooth stinger that can be used to sting multiple times. Honey bees have a barbed stinger that can be used to sting only once.

Life Cycle: Yellow jackets are social insects that have a division of labor between workers and sexually developed queens (both females) and males. Newly fertilized queens are the only members of the colony that overwinter. Yellow jacket colonies begin in April or May when the overwintered queen emerges. She locates a suitable nest site, which is normally located in a soil cavity such as an abandoned mouse nest or in a hollow tree. Other possible nest sites are attics, porches, eaves, or sheds. The queen builds a small paper nest and lays several eggs that hatch and mature to adult workers. The workers assume all tasks of nest expansion including foraging for food, defending the colony entrance, and feeding the queen and larvae. The colony rapidly increases in size and may reach several hundred workers by August. Nests are constructed of layers of comb made of tiny bits of wood fiber chewed into a paper-like pulp. During the peak population period, the colony produces reproductive cells that produce new queens and males. These eventually leave the nest for mating flights. Inseminated queens fall to the ground and seek out a protected place such as a brush pile, a hollow tree, or a building to spend the winter. Males that have successfully mated quickly die. The parent colony begins to rapidly decline in fall and the original queen and workers die with the onset of cold temperatures. A new colony cycle begins the next spring.