“Watch me kill this yellowjacket,” said Noah as he heard the sound of a wasp’s exoskeleton crunch beneath his foot. Proud of his accomplishment, Noah scraped the bug guts from his shoe and continued on his merry way. But had Noah really killed the wasp? Or had he just cut off one of its fingernails?
Yellowjackets, like some (but not all) wasps and bees, are social insects. Along with ants and termites, these social insects are unique for their highly complex social structures. In particular, they form colonies that exhibit an overlap in generations, a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive castes, and adults who care for their young.
The job of reproduction is typically performed by a single queen. The non-reproducing females perform other tasks for the colony, such as collecting food, building and protecting the nest, feeding and caring for the queen, raising the larvae, and defending the colony from predators.
The only males in the colony are the drones, whose sole purpose is to mate with new queens. Once they leave the hive, they never return. The new queens, on the other hand, go on to found new colonies. After the colony has been founded, it enters a growth stage when the queen no longer leaves the nest. Depending on the species, a single colony can comprise anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds of thousands of workers that all serve a single queen.
This interdependence of all members of the colony on each other has led some to consider each colony of social insects its own superorganism. The colony as a whole fits the definition of an organism well. It is born, grows, and reproduces. And while each individual member of the colony can act independently, none can survive without the rest.
When looking at a single yellowjacket through the ‘superoganism’ lens, the behaviors of each individual are intimately tied to the queen. When one wasp finds a good food source, others will follow as news quickly spreads through the colony. Similarly, for some social insects, an attack on one is an attack on all. In some species, pheromones are released when an individual dies to alert others to possible danger.
At the end of the colony’s life cycle, after the drones and new queens have mated and the old queen has died, mayhem can ensue in the colony as the social structure collapses. This is why towards the end of the season, some wasp and bee species can be more aggressive than usual. But after the colony has died and a long winter has passed, you might get lucky and see the new queens as they visit your garden, pollinate your flowers and gather food to start their colony.