Since I haven't seen much activity for Estella (other then some nest construction) I decided to post about this Dolichovespula arenaria queen. She just started her nest maybe 2 weeks ago and is almost done with here second layer of envelope. I have seen that in the nest she has a few larvae she must be feeding well and seems pretty healthy. I found an enemy queen bugging her though. While away from the nest a strange queen flew up to the nest hovering around it possible trying to decide if to usurp or kill the resident queen in a terrotorial battle. She may be nesting near by so that would cause an eventual fight or she could be nest less and trying to steal the nest by killing the queen and taking her first brood before workers arrive. (yes, lazy and grewsome) but as long as "my" queen is healthy and doesn't get over worked or bothered by the queen she should have a very good head start compared to other yellow jackets. The pics are in order from 2 days ago, yesterday and today so you can see how fast she works, the picture of a queen in flight is NOT the resident queen but a different color form of the same species. Instead of the pretty dots on the abdomen she had tear dropped shaped dots that connected to the black strips. With the second envelope her nest is maybe the size of a small egg. Its hard to estimate size from 6 ft above your head... Hope you enjoy the pics!
