Mild winter leads to massive wasp nests in Alabama

Entomologists have put out warnings that the state of Alabama may find itself home to unusually massive wasp nests this year.

Known as ‘perennial’ nests, they dwarf the nests normally constructed by yellow jacket wasps, in terms of both the number of wasps living within and the volume of space the nest occupies.

Perennial wasp nests may contain up to 15000 worker wasps, several times the population found in a normal ground-based nest. These nests expand along with their population into any structure available, climbing the sides of buildings or filling up structures like abandoned cars.

The cause of such explosive growth is an unusually mild winter. Normally, wasp populations peak around four or five thousand workers, and these wasps die off as temperatures drop. The survivors and wasp queens disperse from the depopulated nests in spring, to find new food sources and repopulate elsewhere.

With winter temperatures staying relatively high last year, wasp colonies with enough food survive the season intact, and have no reason to disperse in springtime. Instead, they redouble their efforts in their original home, leading to the massive perennial nests that can span several feet.