A colony produces a new queen and the old queen takes off with many of her workers.When colonies get too crowded, they swarm.You can also capture them and release them outdoors.You can physically remove them or crush them.If you see them indoors, they are not coming from an active nest, but from a shelter.While yellowjacket queens live through the winter by themselves, paper wasp queens live in groups.They emerge from their shelters in late winter or early spring.When new queens find shelter in buildings for the winter, they remain in those sites until the weather becomes warm enough for them to become active.In the Upper Midwest, yellowjacket and paper wasp nests do not survive the winter, even inside a building.The nest remains active until freezing temperatures (usually in the mid to upper 20°s F) kill the old queen and the workers.After mating, they fly off to search for places to spend the winter.The colonies start declining as the queens stop laying eggs.By late summer, new queens and males are produced.If the founding queen is killed, another queen will take over laying eggs.The others assume duties for maintaining the nest and are joined later by newly produced workers.If a group of females start a nest, one becomes dominant and becomes responsible for laying eggs.A single paper wasp queen or several queens may start a nest.Before larvae transform into pupae, the larvae spin white silken caps over their cells.Once the egg hatches, the adults feed the larva chewed insects.The queen lays a single egg in each hexagonal nest cell.The workers then look for food and care for the young while the queen produces more eggs.Queens start laying eggs and begin raising workers (sterile female offspring) as soon as possible.Each nest is built from scratch each year while the previous year's nests are not reused (except for European paper wasp nests).The queens select a suitable location and start to construct their nests. As the weather gets warmer in April or May, each queen becomes active.Newly produced and mated queens leave their old nests and search for protected sites to spend the winter (under loose tree bark, old rotten stumps, or within buildings, such as under siding).Queens are the only members of the colony that survive the winter.Yellowjacket and paper wasp colonies survive only one year, referred to as an annual colony.Honey bees and bumble bees are social bees also found in the Upper Midwest. Yellowjackets and paper wasps are two types of social wasps in the Upper Midwest. People mistakenly call all stinging insects "bees." While both social wasps and bees generally live in colonies with queens and workers, they look and behave differently. This article focuses on the habits of social wasps and bees. Being social means many individuals share one nest. Social wasps are a group of related insects belonging primarily to the family Vespidae (sometimes called vespid wasps). Honey bee and bumble bee nests are not usually a problem and should be preserved when possible.When wasp nests occur close to where people are active, the nests should be eliminated to minimize the risk of stings.Wasps will generally not bother people when their nests are not near human activity.Wasps commonly nest in a wide variety of sites, including on and inside buildings, in trees and in the ground.