Paper wasps
Polistes dominula
European Paper Wasp · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 26 July 2025
Two paper wasps on a squash leaf in the July border, one just lifting off. European paper wasps nest under eaves, in railings and in the hollow stems of the borders across the whole of the eastern United States now, and they hunt caterpillars through the vegetable beds.
Told by the bold yellow-and-black banding and the orange antennae. Now one of the commonest wasps in the city after arriving in the US in the 1970s and displacing some of the native Polistes it competes with for nest sites. The nest is a single open comb hung from a stalk, made of chewed wood, which is the paper.
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