There are many varieties of wasps, with diverse habits and structural characteristics. Social wasps and solitary wasps can divide themselves in. Between first they are the hornets, the wasp of dots or yellow spots and the great wasps of color mahogany known like wasps the paper; they live in colonies formed by sterile males, females and workers. Between the solitary wasps there are no workers; they construct individual nests.

The size of the wasps varies much from a species to another one. Some of the parasitic ones are so tiny that several of them inside a small egg of insect can be developed. Other species reach a corporal length of about 5 cm. The wasps female and the workers have a sting whom they use to attack his prey or to protect themselves of the aggressors. The poison of the wasps contains histamina and a factor that dissolves red globules of the blood. The puncture of the wasp can be fatal for the sensible people to her. The immunization can be obtained by means of injections of extracts of antigens. Allergy is seen.

Although, generally, the adult wasps are carnivorous, some also eat vegetal matter, for example, very mature fruit. Like norm, the young wasps are fed only with other insects or rest on insects. Several species have economic importance, since they are between the polinizadores of the commercial cultures and because some are fed on destructive caterpillars. A native species of Africa acts like depredadora of eggs of escarabajo Hercules, an insect that causes immense damages in the regions in which the Coco is cultivated. Many parasitic varieties, that put their eggs in the body or eggs of their guest, are useful for the control of some harmful plagues, like those of pulgón, polilla of the apple tree and polilla of the cotton.

The social wasps construct nests, or wasps's nests, of a similar substance to the paper, made with chewed fibers. The nests of the wasps of yellow specks and the hornets are made up of several layers of cells surrounded in an external cover of globular form. The wasps of the paper construct open and flat nests with an only honeycomb. The initial construction of the nest is the responsibility of the queen, who is the unique one that survives the winter. The first eggs are transformed into workers, who continue the construction of the nest and they become position of the care of the young. In the course of a station, a nest of wasps of the paper can reach the 20 cm of diameter and lodge several hundreds of wasps. The communities of wasps of yellow specks can count with several thousands of members.