Brown Black Yellow Northern Paper Wasp Grooming Postcard

This female northern paper wasp, also called golden paper wasp, has a black to brown body with yellow and brown markings. I rescued her from a dish of water a few minutes before taking this photo. She's using her hind legs to groom and clean her wings and abdomen. If you want to add text, just use the customise feature. Facts about wasps: these awesome insects breathe through trachea or tubes in their abdomen, and wet wings can drag them down, so they can suffocate if they get waterlogged. This is a beneficial insect to have in the garden, as she catches flies, mosquitos, beetle larvae and other insect pests. In this profile shot you can see one of her two big brown compound eyes. She had five eyes altogether - three simple ones on top of her head. Paper wasps such as these build smaller colonies (up to 40 individuals) than hornets or yellowjacket wasps, whose colonies can number in the hundreds or even thousands. They are elegant insects and fly with back legs dangling, resembling a tiny person. Yellowjackets, by comparison, tuck their legs under and zip around like little bullets. Because of smaller colony size the paper wasps don't have to work as hard as their competitors to get enough food for the population of the nest. European paper wasps show up at my wasp feeder about 8:30 am, while the yellowjackets are there at the first trace of light in the sky (about 5:30 am). Paper wasps like this are not considered as aggressive as yellowjackets but they will certainly defend a nest or feeding spot. They have strong mandibles for gnawing wood and biting other wasps. In late summer, wasps have only a couple more months to live. Most will die as natural food sources dry up. Only the new Queens will live to hibernate over the winter, and , we hope, start a new colony in the spring. This large female is likely a Princess who will become a Queen once she's been inseminated during a mating flight into a swarm of males. She'll mate with one or two males. Paper wasps are a female-dominant society, and the ladies can be very bossy to the drones! It was thought that drones don't do much work, but in fact they spend a lot of time getting nectar or sugary fluids to share with the colony. This photo design is great for nature lovers, entomologists, bug collecters, anyone into insects, especially wasps. Original photo by M Sylvia Chaume, Canada.