Emily's Gardening Almanac Timely Tips from a Professional Gardening Expert

What You Need to Know About Yellow Jackets

An individual yellow jacket begins to build the nest alone in spring. Once she has produced enough offspring to take over the work of nest building and foraging duties, she remains inside the nest producing more offspring.

By the end of the summer there may be as many as 600-800 yellow jacket workers in a nest. In late summer the reproductive insects are produced. These mated female reproductives will be queens for the following spring. The main purpose of the male yellow jacket is mating and they cannot sting.

Yellow jacket colonies die out each year. By winter the nests are abandoned and the future queens are in a protected shelter alone. The current year’s nest is not reused the following spring.

Yellow jackets are beneficial because they prey on some insects that are considered pests. Yellow jackets are also food for birds and other insects.

To control yellow jackets you need to apply a pesticide directly to the nest opening. The best time to do this is at dusk when the yellow jackets are inside the nest.

See the North Carolina Chemical Manual for pesticides to apply.

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Created by Susan Johnson, System Administrator, January 2005