Yellowjackets are common social wasps that exhibit a distinct annual life cycle. Their colonies typically die off during the colder months of the year. This is a natural and expected part of their existence.
The Annual Cycle of Yellowjackets
The life cycle of a yellowjacket colony begins in spring with a single queen emerging from hibernation. She selects a suitable nesting site, such as abandoned rodent burrows or wall voids, and constructs a small paper nest from chewed wood fibers mixed with saliva. The queen then lays her first batch of eggs, which she cares for and feeds until they develop into sterile female workers.
Once these workers mature, they expand the nest, forage for food, and care for larvae, allowing the queen to focus solely on laying eggs. Worker yellowjackets have a short lifespan, typically 10 to 22 days. Throughout summer, the colony grows rapidly, reaching thousands of individuals, often 4,000 to 5,000 workers, by late August or September. As the season progresses into late summer and early fall, the queen begins producing new reproductive individuals: male drones and new queens.
Environmental Triggers for Colony Demise
The demise of a yellowjacket colony is primarily triggered by environmental changes as autumn transitions into winter. Decreasing temperatures are a factor, as most yellowjacket workers and males lack the physiological adaptations to survive freezing conditions. As the weather turns colder, their activity levels decrease, and they spend more time within the nest attempting to conserve energy.
Another factor is the reduction in available food sources. Yellowjackets primarily feed on insects, spiders, and other arthropods during warmer months, but as these prey become scarce in fall, they shift their diet to sugary substances like nectar and decaying fruits. This scarcity, combined with colder temperatures, leads to the death of the remaining workers and the original founding queen. In most regions with distinct cold seasons, the entire colony perishes by late fall or early winter.
The Queen’s Role and Next Season’s Nests
Despite the annual death of the colony, the yellowjacket species persists through the survival of newly produced queens. These new, fertilized queens leave their birth colony in late autumn to find sheltered locations for hibernation. Common overwintering sites include crevices in trees, under bark, within leaf litter, soil cavities, or even inside human-made structures like attics and sheds. During this dormant period, they lower their metabolic rate to conserve energy, producing “antifreeze” proteins to withstand freezing temperatures.
The old yellowjacket nest is abandoned and not reused by any queen the following season. The paper-like materials of the nest decompose and disintegrate over winter, making them unsuitable for new colonies. When spring arrives and temperatures rise, the hibernating queens awaken and emerge to begin the cycle anew. Each surviving queen seeks a new site to establish her own colony, starting the next generation of yellowjackets.