At the end of summer, queen wasps leave their nests, mate, then hide away through the winter. In the following year they emerge when the weather is warm and make a nest. Each queen makes a nest by biting off small pieces of rotten wood, mixing it with saliva to form a paste then arranging the pellets to make a papery material in the shape of a ball.

Eggs are laid in the nest and young are reared. Most of these are worker females that cannot breed. Each one has a tube or sting at the end of the abdomen. Inside the abdomen is a poison gland. If the worker wasp feels threatened it will attack and use its sting like a hypodermic needle to inject its poison.