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The wasp on the image has begun her journey from early spring. She woke up from hibernation and is one of the thousands that are searching for the perfect place to build their new home. Even though we consider wasps useless, they are essential to the ecosystems we depend on.

This queen wasp is one of the lucky ones as she managed to survive the winter. Spiders ate some; others were unlucky enough to wake up too early, due to the warmer winters caused by global warming, only to find there was no food. Those who managed to make it to the spring are not safe yet. A lot of them will die eaten by birds, carnivorous plants, or poisoned by pests. 

The job of the queen is to find the right place to create her hive. Immediately after that, she will build the first cells and lay the fertilized eggs she carries from last autumn. In a few weeks from these eggs, wasp workers will hatch. 

Wasps are incredible. They can protect their hive from unwanted guests because they can sting as much as they need to. Very often, they are at the top of the insect food chain and can control pests on trees and crops. They help winemakers too. By biting their grapes, they start the fermentation in advance. 

In autumn, the life of the queen wasp comes to an end. She lays the eggs for the new generation of queens, and shortly before winter, they leave the hive to find a place to survive the winter.

The life of a wasp queen.