How Do Hornets Survive the Winter? A Detailed Guide to Their Overwintering Methods

Hornets are a widely distributed, highly diverse group of fast-flying insects, also known as wasps, paper wasps and yellow jackets, among other names. The female has a powerful long stinger, and when attacked or disturbed in an unfriendly way they will swarm and attack in groups, which can cause allergic reactions and toxic reactions in humans, and in severe cases can lead to death. Let's take a look below at how hornets survive the winter!

How do hornets overwinter?

A hornet colony contains the queen, worker bees (females) and drones. The queen is a female that mated and was fertilized by a drone in the autumn of the previous year; the drone dies shortly after mating, while the female stores the sperm in her spermatheca. When the weather gradually turns cold, the fertilized females leave the nest one after another to seek wind-sheltered places such as wall crevices and haystacks, where they cluster together to overwinter. The lower the temperature, the tighter the cluster; when the temperature rises a little, the cluster loosens, and when the temperature is above 7°C they begin to disperse. In the spring of the following year, the surviving females disperse and go their separate ways, each finding a suitable place to build a nest and lay eggs. The fertilized eggs develop into females, and the unfertilized eggs develop into drones. As the number of workers increases, the nest gradually expands.

What kinds of bees are there in a hornet colony?

1. Queen: After overwintering, the queen, after a period of activity and replenishing her nutrition, each finds a relatively sunny, wind-sheltered place to build a nest. She builds the nest while laying the first generation of eggs, and also takes on all the work of defending against enemies, hunting for food and rearing the first generation of larvae.

2. Drone: Drones are produced from eggs laid by individuals among the second-generation females that have not mated or been fertilized. They can mate with a small number of females from the same nest or a different nest, and can also mate with females of the same generation or the maternal generation, and die one after another shortly after mating.

3. Worker: Workers are responsible for all the internal and external duties of the colony. The first generation of adults are all workers handling internal and external duties. Among the second-generation females, apart from the few that mate successfully and become new queens and the occasional individual that lays male eggs without mating, the great majority are workers.

How should hornets be controlled?

1. Fumigation with pesticides: Spring is an important period for hornets' nest-building activity. At this time there are only a small number of overwintering bees (each 1 bee builds 1 nest), and the nests are still relatively small. During the small-nest stage you can either remove the small nests and destroy them, or dip cloth strips or towels in pesticide and hang them on the small nests to fumigate and kill the hornets.

2. Removing nests at the right time: First spray the nest entrance and the hornets outside the nest with insecticide, then cover the nest with a woven bag and quickly tie the bag opening tight, then remove the nest and put it, bag and all, into water or douse it with gasoline and burn it. Nest removal should be done at night or on a rainy day.

3. High-pressure water gun: For nests built in high places that are hard for people to reach, aim a high-pressure water gun at the nest and spray to break the nest apart. You can also tie waste cotton soaked in fuel oil to one end of a long bamboo pole, light it and reach it to the edge of the nest to burn the nest down.

4. Burning the colony: In late autumn, when the temperature drops to 15°C, hornets begin to leave the nest and move to warmer places such as stone caves and haystacks to escape the cold. They often gather in their hundreds, clustering into a ball to resist the cold. When you find such a colony, you can burn it with fire.

5. Poisoning at water sources: Hornets have the habit of collecting water for nest-building. At the places where the hornets collect water, you can dig water pits by hand or place water containers with pesticide added. When the hornets drink the water they will be poisoned and die. At the same time, however, pay attention to the safety of drinking water for people and livestock.

6. Baiting and killing with corpses: Hornets not only like to eat honeybees, they also bite and eat the corpses of their own kind. Taking advantage of this habit, kill them with a wooden swatter while they are feeding on the corpses. When swatting you must aim accurately, otherwise if a large hornet is missed with one swat it will counterattack and sting.

7. Killing by carrying pesticide: Gently press a hornet down with a small gauze net swatter, then apply a highly toxic pesticide-sugar solution to its thorax and abdomen, and then let it go. After these hornets return to the nest, the other hornets will come to lick the toxic sugar solution on their bodies, poisoning the whole nest.