What Is A Yellow Jacket And How Do I Get Rid Of It?

What is a yellow jacket? A yellow jacket is an insect that has yellow and black alternating stripes on the abdomen. They are about a half an inch long and the queen yellow jacket is about three quarters of an inch long. Yellow jackets have a stinger that allows them to sting over and over unlike honey bees who can only sting once. Yellow jackets often cause people fear because of how bold they are and the fact they can sting over and over.

Yellow jackets will eat small insects, fruits juices and nectar. They are attracted to sweet things such as candy or soda. This is why you will often find them in the backyard harassing you when you are having a cook-out. They also like to eat flies and caterpillars so they are very important in the agriculture business.

Yellow jackets will nest in shrubs, trees, underground and in many human made structures such as eves of a house. Their nest is made from a wood like pulp. The yellow jackets chew and spit out this pulp like fiber. The workers of a yellow jacket colony do not survive the winter and they do not use the same nest.

Yellow jacket colonies consist of workers, queens and males. The queens will emerge in the spring time and start a little paper nest where they will lay eggs. The little eggs turn into larvae which are fed by the queen. Then the little larvae turn into unfertilized females which are the workers. The workers will then go out and start to expand the nest and take care of the queen. Then other queens will grow up in the nest and be fertilized by the male yellow jackets that die shortly after mating. The fertilized queens (the ones who did not start the nest) will leave in early fall to find a place for the winter. The queen who started the nest actually dies. This concludes the life cycle of a yellow jacket.