The Common Wasp is an insect that can be found in gardens, meadows, fields and woodlands throughout England, especially from May to September. It is a social wasp because it lives in a large group called a ‘colony’ which can consist of up to ten thousand wasps. Each colony has one queen wasp that spends most of her life laying eggs. Towards the beginning of winter all the wasps die, apart from the queen wasp which often hibernates in buildings.

The Common Wasp is about one to one and a half centimetres in length, but the queen wasp is nearly two centimetres long. It has black and yellow stripes running across its body and a black anchor-shaped marking on the front of its head with two large black antennae. It has six yellow coloured legs and two pairs of transparent wings which have vein-like patterns on them.

Common Wasps build their nests under the ground in abandoned burrows or in roof spaces of houses, garages or sheds. The queen wasp first starts to build the nest after she has emerged from hibernation and then lays her eggs. The larvae that hatch out of the eggs soon develop into workers’. The workers continue to build the nest while the queen wasp concentrates solely on laying eggs in order to create a bigger colony.