Bees hibernate full#

Unlike honey bees, yellow jackets generally do not overwinter in their hives, leaving the next generation to the late-summer, newborn queens who will mate and then hibernate in some protected nook through the winter months.Ĭome late fall, the yellow jacket workers and old queen perish, and the nest is abandoned and not used again. Like honey bees, yellow jackets are social insects who build large nests to rear their young. Not BeesĪlthough consistently mislabeled “bees” by the media-thereby giving our gentle girls an unwarranted reputation for meaness-yellow jackets belong to the wasp family. I can think of few things as horrid for a beekeeper as coming home to a hive that was thriving only hours before, to find it crawling with thousands of yellow jackets, bees all dead or devoured, honey plundered. Each year, in my western Washington area, beekeepers lose hives to these hungry creatures, sometimes in a matter of hours. Yes, the yellow jackets are back, and about this time of year bee forums are buzzing with concerns about keeping bee hives safe from the black-and-yellow death that is the yellow jacket.

Bees hibernate full#

Joking aside, they have been known to kill people and animals when they attack in full force.

If you make the scary mistake of stepping on one of their ground nests, you can end up being chased for up to a quarter mile by a squad of angry, yellow-stripped barbed missiles intent on inflicting serious bodily harm. Turning your barbecues and picnics into fierce swatting contests. The bitey one Yellow Jackets: They arrive in late summer,