World's First Papermaker

Back in the spring while I was grooming my french magnolia, there were two black waspy looking things that kept getting in my way. I continued my grooming and ignored them - shooing them away (not smart) until they got mad and stung the fool out of me. I kept looking for a nest or something that would alert me to what those black things were . . didn't see anything!

 I came on inside and doctored my 'wounds' and after a while just forgot about them. In another couple  of weeks or so, I noticed a brown blob hanging from a limb of the french magnolia. Closer inspection revealed that it was a hornet's nest!!! Yikes!

A little research revealed that in the spring, the queen bee begins building her nest which consists of 50
paper-like cells and lays eggs in them. Fertilized eggs are female - and unfertilized ones are male, or drones. Drones are good for good for guarding their nest and propagation purposes only. Once they mate, they die.

When these initial 50 eggs hatch, she puts them to work 'building her empire'. The females help her increase the size of her empire until  there's about 700 workers. She places two drones at the entrance to her castle - their job is to deter any threat that may appear. If they can't deter the threat, then the entire hive is called to arms . . .and they ALL attack. I just feel fortunate that it was at the beginning of construction and not many hornets were available to 'help' when I made my threat!

If a threat is severe enough for all the hornets to be called to arms, the victim usually does not survive. Their venom is deadly. A person allergic to the common wasp will probably not survive even two stings/bites from hornets. Yes, they sting and they bite.

With all that said you're gonna think I'm mad, but I love to watch the hornet's nest increase in size .  . .You can see their nest growing every day. . . .it's fun to watch the drones just sit and guard their property - and you can tell they're thinking, "don't even think about it!"

Hornets will NOT bother a human unless they feel threatened! I'm assuming I stirred up their survival instincts when I was trying to groom the french magnolias.

I'm not afraid of the hornets, but very respectful. I edge around the magnolia . . .cut grass around it and the drones just watch me. If this nest were in an area where kids played or guests visited, I would destroy it . .but it's in a 'safe' area.  

They have only one entrance into the nest. It's on the lower left. That little black dot you see on the lower right is one of the sentinels. The second one is on the other side of the entrance.

I hope you find nature as interesting as I do. I'll do followup posts as I learn more about the hornet and I'll also poss to photos as the nest grows.

Needles to say there'll be no more cleaning up beneath the tree until the hornets abandon the nest in the fall.