Yellow Jacket Metropolis

A typical nest consists of two or three thousand workers and one queen. With these large nests, we may have as many as 100,000 workers. (…)

Rather than starting spring with a single queen – as yellow jackets traditionally do – these nests are starting with possibly a couple of thousand workers and possibly multiple queens.

We’re not really sure how this (…) works. It could be that the daughters of the original queen don’t leave the nest or that the queens have developed some way to cooperate.

Dr. Charles Ray, Auburn University

IMAGE [above, larger] ARTICLE [Giant nests perplex experts] (via RealityCarnival) ARTICLE/IMAGES [What is Causing Super-sized Yellow Jacket Nests?]