Yellow jackets, common stinging insects, appear to vanish with the onset of cold weather. Their seasonal disappearance sparks curiosity about their winter activities. Unlike some other insects, yellow jackets do not migrate or continue their usual activities through winter.
The Annual Yellow Jacket Life Cycle
Yellow jacket colonies operate on an annual cycle, meaning they build a new nest each spring and do not survive the winter as a whole unit. A single queen initiates the colony in spring, constructing a small paper nest and laying eggs. The first offspring emerge as sterile female workers, who then take over foraging, nest expansion, and caring for subsequent generations. Throughout the summer, the colony rapidly grows, reaching peak populations of several hundred to many thousands by late summer or early fall. As the season progresses, the colony begins to produce new reproductive individuals: males and new queens.
Winter Survival: The Queen’s Role
As temperatures drop and resources dwindle in late fall, the vast majority of the yellow jacket colony perishes. Workers, males, and the old founding queen all die off with the arrival of cold temperatures or the first hard frost. Only newly mated queens, born late in the season, survive the winter by seeking sheltered locations to enter dormancy or hibernation.
Queens find refuge in protected spots to escape freezing conditions. Common sites include hollow logs, stumps, under loose bark, leaf litter, or soil cavities. They may also utilize human-made structures like attics, wall voids, sheds, or crawl spaces. During this period, the queen’s metabolism slows significantly, and she relies on stored fat reserves to sustain her through the cold. While queens are more cold-hardy than other colony members, extreme or fluctuating cold conditions can still impact their survival.
Starting Anew: Spring Emergence
With the return of warmer temperatures in spring, typically around April or early May, hibernating yellow jacket queens awaken from their dormant state. They emerge from sheltered overwintering sites and begin the search for a suitable location to establish a new nest. Once a site is chosen, the queen starts building a small paper nest by chewing wood fibers into a pulp. She then lays her first batch of eggs, initiating the cycle anew for a new colony to grow throughout the summer.