Bald-faced hornet varies depending on an individual's life cycle stage and geographic location. Adult hornets are carnivorous, and will prey upon several insect types. They have been observed consuming meat, spiders, fruit and insects. Adults will also drink flower nectar which they feed to their larvae. Female Bee Moths (Aphomia sociella) have been known to lay their eggs in Bald-faced hornet nests. The hatched larvae will then proceed to feed on the eggs, larvae, and pupae left unprotected by the wasp, sometimes destroying large parts of the nest as they tunnel throughout looking for food. Each spring, queens that were born and
Bald-faced hornet C29 backbone. The major lipids and their distributions in workers were as follows: n-heptacosane(28%), 11-13-methylheptacosane (15%) 3,13-dimethylheptacosane (11%) and 13 and 15-methylnonacosane (10%). Nonacosene comprised 34% of cuticular lipids in the queen. The average chain length of identified cuticular lipids is 28.0 in queens and 27.5 in workers. In "D. maculata", queens mate with only one male which results in a worker relatedness of 0.75, whereas the relatedness between the queen and worker is only 0.5. Gynes in "D. maculata" have the ability to discriminate between fragments of natal comb and foreign comb. Recognition does not depend upon presence of