How do wasps spend the winter?

When winter comes, all kinds of animals and plants have to find their own ways to spend the winter, whether it is hibernating or sinking to the bottom, or withering leaves to reduce evaporation, is a good way to survive the winter. So how do wasps spend the winter? The animal basically disappears in winter and starts buzzing again the following spring.

First, how do wasps survive the winter

Wasps are social insects like honeybees, which are divided into three types: females, drones and worker bees, in which drones are specially responsible for mating with females, and females are mainly responsible for egg reproduction. Worker bees are mainly responsible for collecting food, feeding larvae, guarding the hive and so on. When overwintering, it is mainly females who survive the winter in the cold shelter, while both drones and worker bees will die, and many new wasps will be reproduced by females in the coming year.

Usually, females mate with drones before winter, and after that, females store drones' sperm in seminal vesicles and store a lot of energy in their bodies for the winter. When winter comes, the fertilized female bees will leave the nest one after another and spend the winter in relatively warm and sheltered places such as stone caves, cracks in the walls and haystacks. The lower the outside temperature, the tighter the female bees clump, on the contrary, the clumping is relatively loose.

When the external temperature is higher than 7 ℃, the female bees begin to separate groups to look for nesting places. After overwintering, the female bees not only have to lay eggs, but also undertake the work of building the hive, obtaining food, feeding larvae and so on. After the emergence of the first generation, the female bees are specially responsible for breeding offspring, and a few individuals of the second generation female bees mate with the drones and lay eggs.

Second, the basic information of wasps

The scientific name of wasp is "wasp". It is large but toxic. Touching a beehive in the wild may lead to wasp attack. Its toxin can cause allergic and toxic reactions, and in severe cases can lead to death. There are many species of wasps, which are widely distributed on land in the northern hemisphere. there are about 15000 species in the world and more than 5000 species are known. With the exception of the polar regions, this kind of bees are basically distributed all over the world.

Although the toxicity of wasp is very high, it also has high economic value. Wasp pupa is a kind of edible insect which is rich in high protein and low fat to absorb royal jelly, honey and pollen. It is a kind of high-grade natural food with high value. In addition, the adults, larvae and hives of wasps can be used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat poisonous insects, stings, sores and other diseases.

That's all we have to say about wasps. When you see a beehive in the wild, don't flirt casually to avoid being bitten by a swarm of bees.