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Encyclopedia of Social Insects pp 1–17Cite as

Swarm-Founding Wasps

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Social vespids fall into two conspicuously dissimilar behavioral groups according to their mode of colony founding. The independent founders initiate new colonies by one or a few inseminated females without the aid of true workers. In contrast, swarm founders initiate colonies by means of a group comprising many workers and a smaller number of inseminated females (queens) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Left: Founding-stage nest of Polistes carnifex with its single founding queen. Costa Rica. Right: Founding swarm of Polybia occidentalis. The nest, upper left, is just a few hours old, with workers busily engaged in adding new cells to the initial comb. Some of the cells already contain eggs. The nest will be large enough to house all the members of the swarm in 2–3 days. Costa Rica

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Robert L. Jeanne

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  1. Robert L. Jeanne
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Correspondence to Robert L. Jeanne .

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  1. University of the West Indies, Department of Life Sciences University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

    Christopher Starr

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Jeanne, R.L. (2020). Swarm-Founding Wasps. In: Starr, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Social Insects. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_123-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_123-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90306-4

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