Oriental hornet, (Vespa orientalis) (Linnaeus, 1771) Σφήκα - Cyprus

The Oriental hornet, Vespa orientalis, is a social insect of the Vespidae family. It can be found in Southwest Asia, Northeast Africa, the island of Madagascar, and parts of Southern Europe. Oriental hornets have also been found in a few isolated locations such as Mexico due to human introduction. The Oriental hornet lives in seasonal colonies consisting of caste system dominated by a queen.The hornet builds its nests underground and communicates using sound vibrations. The hornet has a yellow stripe on its cuticle (exoskeleton) which can absorb sunlight to generate a small electrical potential, and it has been suggested that this might help supply energy for digging. The adult hornet eats nectar and fruits and scavenges for insects and animal proteins to feed to their young.Because they are scavengers, the hornets may also serve as a transmitter of disease following consumption infected plants. The hornets are a primary pest to honey bees, attacking bee colonies to obtain honey and animal proteins. The sting of an Oriental hornet can be quite painful to humans and some humans are allergic to stings
The Oriental hornet typically lives in nests that it digs underground. A nests contains multiple combs in which the colony lives. While nests are most commonly found underground, some paper nests are constructed in protective hollows such as inside hollow trees, in shipping containers, parked vehicles, and aircraft. To construct the paper nests, the workers strip the bark from twigs, tree branches, and shrubs in order to collect fiber
Oriental hornets live in seasonal colonies which are formed ever year in the spring by a single queen who mated during the previous fall.During the fall, the queen lays her eggs which will develop into new queens and drones. After mating, the drones die off while the fertilized queens seek hideouts in which to hibernate for the winter. The colony will grow throughout the spring and summer months until the population and activity of the colony peaks in the late summer and early fall. The peak size of the colony is several thousand individuals and a colony will contain on average 3-6 combs each containing 600-900 individual cells
Vespa orientalis is a type of social wasp. Individuals live collectively in colonies with one queen and thousands of workers. Social wasps are unusual in their practice of altruism in which non-reproductive individuals work for the benefit of the colony. This occurs because all individuals in a colony are closely related. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photos Nicosia,Agios Sozomenos by George Konstantinou