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In the gardens, meadows and woodland edges of the Pacific Northwest, a casual glance at a blooming salal, camas patch or backyard fruit tree can reveal a busy world of insect visitors — primarily bees and wasps. To the untrained eye they may look similar: both can be yellow and black, both hover and visit…

There’s nothing quite like the smell of charcoal and the sound of laughter at a backyard BBQ—until a wasp appears and sends everyone scattering. Wasps are attracted to the same things that make outdoor gatherings enjoyable: sweet drinks, uncovered food, and sheltered seating. While a few wasps can be merely annoying, larger numbers or accidental…

By May, Seattle’s cool, wet spring is beginning to give way to warmer, sunnier spells — the exact conditions that bring yellowjackets out of hiding and onto patios across the city. Yellowjackets are social wasps whose annual cycle is synchronized with seasonal change: queens that overwinter underground or in sheltered cavities emerge in spring to…

European paper wasps (Polistes dominula) and the native wasps of the Pacific Northwest (including native Polistes species and several Vespula and Dolichovespula species) can look superficially similar to the casual observer, but they differ in important ways that affect ecology, human encounters, and management. Polistes dominula is an introduced species that has spread widely across…

Bald-faced hornets (Dolichovespula maculata) build large, papery nests and can become aggressively defensive if disturbed, so catching the early warning signs of a nest forming is important for safety and for choosing the right removal approach. A nest does not appear overnight — a single queen starts a small paper structure in spring and a…

When spring finally warms the air, the solitary queen of a social wasp species begins one of nature’s quietly dramatic projects: building a starter nest and rearing the first generation of workers that will go on to run the colony for the season. That seemingly small structure — sometimes a handful of paper cells hung…

Every late spring, many Seattle homeowners notice the delicate, papery umbrellas of wasp nests tucked up under roof eaves and porch overhangs. These structures—built by social paper wasps (genus Polistes)—are not random decorations. They are the result of precise biological timing and a careful choice of microhabitat: solitary overwintering queens emerge as the weather warms,…

In the Pacific Northwest’s mild, damp climate, the first signs of wasp activity often appear in spring as single queens emerge to found new colonies. In Seattle homes those earliest nests are usually modest in size and readily overlooked: a single open comb the size of a golf ball to a small orange, a tiny…

Late spring is prime time for yellowjacket queens to reappear after winter’s dormancy, and May is often when homeowners first notice a single, purposeful wasp inspecting yards and structures. Unlike the noisy swarms of workers that dominate later in the season, a scouting queen acts alone as she searches for a suitable nesting site. Understanding…

Every year as temperatures rise and gardens come back to life, a small but consequential drama begins above our heads: solitary queen wasps emerge from winter hiding and start building nests. What looks like a tiny, fragile paper cup in May can be the seed of a large, aggressive colony by late summer. For homeowners,…