Talk:Bald-faced hornet

(untitled comment)
I've always thought these things looked cool. (with the almost Grim Reaperish face and all) 216.79.252.71 10:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There are no males mentioned in the caste system.

The web-site that is linked in article.
That web-site is too biased in favor of these horrible things. Put an extermination web-site also on the page to balance the page out. 71.245.198.148 (talk) 22:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Educational web site added
This seems to be a relatively informative site. Nice photos and interesting lists of prey, predators and some trees where nests may be formed. Makuabob (talk) 22:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Exterminator web site added
Although, it is NOT a kill-on-sight site. It, too, advocates restraint IF the nest is remotely . Should it present a hazard, they recommend themselves, of course, to handle the problem. Makuabob (talk) 22:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

White Jacket
Me and my family always called these things "White Jackets". Is this nickname common place? 66.30.100.140 (talk) 22:18, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Refinements to the article content
Just trying to smooth out some redundancies and confusing terms. I deleted "young" from "young Queens" because, when it emerges in the spring, it is half-way through its life cycle; sort of makes it middle-aged, actually. It seems far from certain that ALL new 'queens' WILL survive any given winter, so the declarative statement "will start a nest" was made conditional to their surviving long enough to hibernate & then survive the winter, also. More may be added later; I am watching a large nest of these now; luckily, it's about 25 feet up a maple tree and poses no threat to people. Makuabob (talk) 17:06, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Nest Growth Speed Suggestion
I have searched everywhere and there is none or very little specific information on the speed of bald-faced hornet nest growth. Vague information on many websites that basically say it takes the whole summer to reach full size, starting in may and ending in autumn. Is that slowly over the whole summer or is it slow and then FAST? It seems to me that this particular topic would attract people like me, who would like to know how volleyball sized Bald-faced hornets nest grew out of seemingly nowhere on my front porch so fast as not to be noticed until I got stung and swarmed while talking to someone in the late evening. This nest is HUGE and very noticeable. Well it's noticeable NOW. But how long was it that big? How long does it take to get that big? For example, in the page about the Bald-faced hornet there is a time frame of the queen's growth, feeding and growth of the first generation and then these newly hatched members continue to take over nest construction duties and the nest grows as needed. So the increase in size of the nest could be exponential. Could it be Inches per day or hours? It could be small for a while then start to grow in size very quickly as the population of the nest increases? Is it possible that my nest was the size of an orange the day before? Possibly there is no research on this or maybe no way to definitively say how fast it can grow. Is it possible that these nests just aren't "obvious" to the human eye because of the shape or color? I can't leave my house through the front door right now because of absolute terror of the volleyball of death on my porch. Apparently I have been walking under it for days or weeks without noticing which seems almost impossible. Would love to know how fast these things can grow or if I should have my eyes checked.Verntheyounger (talk) 09:26, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if it helps, but I sprayed my deck railing with a residual insecticide 6 days ago. I clearly remember there being no nest. Last night, I discovered a cantaloupe-sized nest there. So, assume that size in 5 or less days. 24.241.114.33 (talk) 18:05, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

On the subject of nests, the article says nests have been recorded as low as 1.1m above the ground, but the nest I just found in a bush my front yard is barely 2' off the ground. Just wondering if that's at all unusual. 24.115.46.109 (talk) 23:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Some Ideas for Improvement
I would like to point out that "actually" is misspelled in the first line under the Description section.

The categories in this article could be divided better; at the moment, the Life Cycle category contains the mating process, but also the animal’s eating habits, resource protective tactics, and its relative importance. These additional pieces of information are scattered throughout the actual life cycle description, which ultimately decreases the article’s coherency and makes it harder for the reader to process the information. Three categories should replace the current umbrella category Life Cycle: Sexual Selection and Mating Systems, Competing for Resources, and Predators versus Prey. By focusing on the sexual tendencies and hierarchical behaviors of the species, the reader will obtain a clearer and more concise understanding of the hornet’s mating strategies. Similarly, the two other categories enable the article to address the hornet’s eating habits and preferences in more depth and to emphasize its strategies as a predator and defensive tactics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chiararosenbaum (talk • contribs) 21:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * When you see a regular spelling error anywhere on Wikipedia, feel free to jump in and edit it clean. No guilt, no fanfare, no one will argue about that.  No thanks, only the warming of the cockles of your heart. So I've been advised by wikipedians that came before me; so I've done, myself, dozens of times.  It's a small service we can do to help. Nei1 (talk) 01:07, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

General Thoughts for Missing Information
I agree with commenter Verntheyounger that there should be a section about nesting construction that highlights details such as the size, composition, and length of time it takes to build these nests. This might reveal information about the behavior of the workers. There also should be a section about sex ratios and parental investment. The authors only briefly state that there are male drones that lack stingers so more information on reproduction and sex ratios would help develop characteristics about this type of bald-faced hornet. This article is also missing an important section about food collection and prey-predator relationships. This is relevant information to understanding animal personalities and survival strategies. I agree with the start-class quality and low-importance rankings based on the lack of information provided in the article. Jazdeb — Preceding undated comment added 03:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Some Suggestions
Hey Micah!

These are possible areas of improvement. Some are more important than others (like adding links, which is more important). You could (and should) put more links in your paragraphs. For example, your Taxonomy/Phylogenetics, Description, Colony Cycle, Ergonomic/Reproductive State, Social Organization, and Kin Selection paragraphs are all lacking links. Make a link like this: Manual of Style/Linking

In headings, only the first word and proper nouns need to be capitalized. For some titles, this is not a problem, but the following titles should be changed: “Taxonomy and Phylogenetics,” “The Founding Stage,” “The Ergonomic and Reproductive Stage,” “Social Organization,” “Caste Structure and Distribution,” “Cuticular Hydrocarbons,” “Cuticula Hydrocarbon Profile and Dimorphism among Castes,” “Kin Selection,” and “Bald Faced Hornet Sting.”

You can add more to Taxonomy/Phylogeny by discussing the implications of each taxonomic classification for your species. For example, what are some characteristics that all Dolichovespula species have in common? As it is, it seems very brief and somewhat unsubstantiated.

For the Description, if you can find the information on this you can go into a description of their anatomy and life stages (egg, larva, pupa, adult). For Distribution/Habitat, you can include a map of their distribution, and/or compare the distribution of D. maculata with the distribution of other local or regional wasps nearby.

The use of second person to explain the provocation of a Bald-faced hornet sting (in the section “Bald Faced Hornet sting”) doesn’t seem to be tasteful to me. I think you can still use the third person to explain it and not risk plagiarizing your source if you just change the grammatical structure and words.

You also need to set up the course banner on the talk page.

Overall, cool article! It was interesting to read! :)

Carzhong (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd like the article to include whether these hornets are beneficial, or not especially. Ok, they eat flies, caterpillars, and spiders.  In my opinion, they can eat all the flies they want, but it depends what kind of caterpillars and spiders.  On one YouTube video, there are comments repeating that bald faced hornets eat beneficial pollinating bees, and that's what motivates me to ask. And are these hornets an endangered species?   These subjects would help put into perspective the question about destroying poorly placed nests vs. calling the professionals to have them relocated.  (In my experience, I called the Insect Department at Penn State University and described the soccer-ball nest, and they said there's nothing ecologically significant about these hornets; I should call an exterminator.  So I did, easy peazy.)  Thanks Nei1 (talk) 01:44, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Suggestions and comments
Hi Micah, great job! Overall this was a very informative article. I made several minor changes, which mostly consisted of italicizing the species name, correcting capitalization oversights, fixing apostrophes that were misplaced, and adjusting a few comma splices. I also reformatted a citation that connected to a dead link so that it would lead to a live link. I would recommend that you change the section headings so that only the first word is capitalized. As for content, as you already noted the Life cycle section needs citations. Additionally, sections under the Bald Faced Hornet sting section need citations, even if they are repeated from information above. For example, in this section you could cite the Archer article which you cited in the Colony cycle section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rey ks (talk • contribs) 02:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Death Window (Hornet nest on a window)
Im still new to the whole editing a article thing so please forgive if this is a bit odd... back to the main topic at hand. I saw this image on an image sharing site ( imgur ), Image. i know about Wikipedia image policy that is has to be my own work, but the owner of the image did give permission to add his/her images to Wikipedia, Proof, what should i do ? Thank you in advance. -RyoumiyaHaru (talk) 16:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you'll have to check with firestorm559 again, asking if he releases the picture under, say, CC BY-SA. Muad (talk) 18:33, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * well he/she said this Reply which gets to my second question how do you apply for a CC license ?.-RyoumiyaHaru (talk) 19:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Matricidal behavior?
The article in several places claims that workers can reproduce and will kill their queen, but all of these claims are sourced to this since-removed fact sheet from Clemson University, which says no such thing. Claims should reflect what their sources say; this source does not support the claims made re: worker reproduction or matricide. Is there a source that confirms this? Rogue 9 (talk) 01:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)