River Colne Rickmansworth - Hornets and Nest

Photos of Hornets and their nest in a willow on the bank of the River Colne adjacent to Stockers Lake taken from two visits over this and last week.

 

Hornet female workers only live approximately 6 weeks, and by mid-September next year's queens will have left the nest and mated.  The current queen will by now have stopped laying eggs, and so by early November all the hornets will have died, and the nest will be silent. 

 

A hornet resting in the sun, perhaps soaking up the warmth.

 

The nest 2m up the willow tree.

 

A hornet that had fallen from the nest into the edge of the river.  When I first spotted it, the insect was on its back, but it eventually managed to get out of the pull of the water's surface, and fly up to the nest again.

 

Photos taken from the shady side of the nest, with hornets arriving and flying off to forage.  They were quite evident flying past me 100m down the path from this nest (assuming that they were from this particular nest)