Wasps

         
A Wasps Life Cycle

A wasps life span depends on their role in the colony. The fertile female could last for a year while the workers (sterile female) will only last for 22 days or less. Males could last longer, usually up to six weeks. But during that short time frame it experience significant changes which is geared towards the increase of the wasp population.

The wasp population starts out with a queen bee looking for suitable mates. She could mate with several males and store their sperm in her body. During mating, she is already fertile but her eggs don�t immediately interact with the sperm to prevent continuous mating.

The queen bee then builds a nest which would become a colony. The eggs are stored separately in a small sack which during that time has been injected with sperm.

At first, the queen bee will just hatch enough workers to support her in growing the colony. With enough workers, she will just concentrate on giving birth. Workers will assist her in giving birth, taking care of the fertilized eggs as well as guarding the colony. As the colony increases in size, female bees will then start to become smaller queen bees, looking for males that would deposit sperm to them. By the time the new breed of queens could lay eggs, the main queen has already reached her limit in life span and dies.

These activities happen during the summer and ends up in autumn. The fertile female would then go on hibernation and would only come out at the early days of summer for another cycle.