Tree wasp
The tree wasp is a black and yellow striped wasp. You can tell it apart by its yellow face with one tiny black dot in the middle. It lives in a family with a queen and builds a round nest out of paper.
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Fun facts
Despite its name, it does not only nest in trees. It also builds nests under the ground, in hedges and under house roofs.
It makes paper itself by chewing old dead bark and mixing it with spit.
Its nest is about as big as a grapefruit and has around four layers of little rooms inside.
A family lives only about three and a half months, from May to August or September.
Only the new queens survive the winter. They sleep through it and start brand new nests in May.
Most asked questions about Tree wasp
?Where do tree wasps build their nests?
In trees and hedges, in holes in the ground, and sometimes under the roof of a house.
?How big is a tree wasp?
Workers are about 11 to 15 millimetres long. The queens are bigger, up to 19 millimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dolichovespula sylvestris
- Named by
- Scopoli, 1763
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Dolichovespula sylvestris (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Sandy Rae. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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