What is a Hornet?
A hornet is any of a variety of large social wasps that live in North America, Asia and Europe. Hornets typically live in wooded areas and make their homes in nests that consist of many hexagonal cells and are made from a combination of chewed up wood and plant fiber. These nests are built in the spring by the female queen and serve the sole purpose of raising additional hornets. The queen lays an egg into each individual cell, and takes care of these eggs when they hatch into larvae. She will then feed them a diet of protein-rich insects until each larva transforms into a hornet. The male hornets will then function as workers for their colony by helping the queen expand the nest, gather more food, and assist in raising more larvae. By the end of summertime, a nest can be as large as a basketball and home to a colony of hundreds of hornets. Finally in the fall, new queens are born along with new males whose purpose is to mate with the queen. Then the new queens will find a place to hib
