A high school teacher trying to solve the mystery of why queen Vespula wasps mate with many different males thinks the practice might have evolved to stave off a catastrophic colony collapse.

Wasps don't reuse old nests, opting instead to build new. They will, however, choose the same area or tree branch. When they ...

Social wasps (called yellow-jackets in some places) live in colonies consisting of hundreds or thousands of more-or-less sterile female workers and their much larger mother, the egg-laying queen.

Interestingly, each communal nest holds one queen that produces eggs. The other female working wasps don’t have fertile eggs. As cold weather starts, their behaviors change. However, it depends ...

This forms a malleable pulp that is perfect for moulding. The queen lays eggs into the hollow spaces - the cells - she creates. The eggs hatch and grow to become her first worker wasps. When they ...