Save the queen

[urbpan]

If you are in a place with harsh freezing winters, and you see a yellow jacket in May, you are most likely seeing a queen. She has woken up from her sleep, where she was hiding under bark or under a nice warm rotting log, or--as I suspect in this case--in a crevice or wall void in a building. Queens can sting, apparently, but this one had no interest in doing so. I found her battering against a window, probably trying to get outside to find a place to establish a nest, with whatever energy she had stored from last year.

I got her a little wet, so that she would slow down a bit for the photograph (and this short hygiene video). I have a request in to Bugguide.net to identify her to species.