Bald-Faced Hornet

Dolichovespula maculata — the bald-faced hornet — is one of the most familiar large social wasps in eastern and northern North America and is taxonomically a yellowjacket (subfamily Vespinae) rather than a true hornet (genus Vespa). The species' common name comes from the contrasting white face on a black body — distinct from the yellow-and-black banded yellowjackets people are more familiar with. Bald-faced hornets construct large gray paper-mâché spherical aerial nests up to basketball-size that hang from tree branches, building eaves, attic peaks, and sometimes shed walls. The nests are constructed of chewed wood pulp mixed with saliva and are envelope-built (a smooth outer shell encloses the comb). Colonies are founded each spring by an overwintered queen, grow to 400-700 workers by midsummer, and produce reproductive males and queens in late summer; the entire colony except the new queens dies at the first autumn frost. Bald-faced hornets are aggressive defenders of the nest — disturbance within ~10 feet typically triggers mass attack. The sting is rated 2.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index ('rich, hearty, slightly crunchy'). The species has a notable defensive behavior: workers can SPRAY a stream of venom from the stinger toward predator eyes from short distances, causing temporary blindness without requiring contact — useful against bears, raccoons, and other vertebrate raiders. Bald-faced hornets are predators of caterpillars, flies, other wasps, and yellowjackets — making them important biocontrol agents at the landscape scale.