Yellowjackets make their nests underground or in wall voids. Yellow jackets annually produce new colonies that are constructed of paper, produced from ground wood pulp. Nest size varies from 300 to 120,000 cells, averaging 2,000 to 6,000 cells, and usually contains 1,000 to 4,000 workers at its peak. Only the inseminated females hibernate and survive the winter. The founding queen, the workers, and the males all die. 

Baldface hornets are social insects which live in aerial nests. The adults are represented by workers which are sterile females, queens, and males which come from unfertilized eggs and usually appear in the late summer. Only inseminated females over winter and do so in sheltered places. In the spring, she uses chewed-up cellulose material to build a paper carton nest of serval dozen cells covered by a paper envelope. One egg is laid in each cell as it is constructed. The queen feeds the developing larvae arthropod protein material and nectar. The nest will eventually consist of 3-5 rounded paper combs that are open ventrally and attached one below another and are covered with a multi-layered, insulative paper mache envelope. Nest size varies up to 3,500 cells in 5 combs but usually consists of less than 2,000 cells in 3-4 combs and contains 100-400 workers at its peak (range to 636 workers).