As the queen  becomes adult, the sexual females escape from the nest together with the males which will fertilize them. Some go far away, some others stay near the area where they are born. They will rest during the winter in any natural such as trees, burrows, holes or any other space which will protect them from cold. 

In Spring, February of March, depending upon the weather of the area, the young queen begins to dance in order to find a place where to set up its colony. She begins to build a nest, initially as big as a hen’s egg. The young queen will collect various materials to build the nest. She will also need great quantities of water to produce pulp to strengthen the nest. Soon she will also need insects to feed  the larvae. She will breed alone the first brood of workers which will be the size of a wasp and which will be born over five weeks after which they will leave the nest. 

It is at this moment that we will wait for them with our traps to try to capture them. Without them the nest will be condemned to die, even before being active. But many others will avoid the traps  and survive. It is necessary to seek them out during the summer, before the end of August, in order to exterminate them, since at this time, the sexual reproduction will begin again. 

As soon as the number of workers become sufficient (50 to 60) to undertake the enlargement of the nest, the young queen will not help anymore. She  will only lay. Until the end of the summer, she will lay only  fertilized eggs which will give birth to workers. Then the laying of the sexual generation will continue until October. 

When a queen dies, sometimes, a worker takes her place and begins to lay but, since she is not fertilized she will produce only males off spring and the colony will die early in the summer. From mid-September to end of October, the queen will decline. Some of them will not have enough reserves of sperm, therefore they will only lay unfertilised eggs. This will mean the demise of the colony because the males do not participate in the activity of the colony. These colonies will be the first to die. 

In September, they are still  some colonies which have few males and lot of workers and a small brood ; this explains that they are still alive. In a nest caught last year, there was still a small brood alive, some larvae and enough insects to discourage the birds from eating the larvae. But the colony gradually dies. Some adults remain active for some time but the cold  and old age result in the demise of last survivals. 

The birds are free to eat the larvae.