Where’s the buzz? Wasps are missing this year across the Inland Northwest

Yellow jackets and paper wasps are typically a familiar sight this time of year – buzzing around gardens, patios and hiking trails and eyeing our picnics and barbecues.

But this summer, our region’s wasp population has lost its sting.

With August only several days away, “good numbers” of these sleek yellow and black insects should be darting about and grabbing roadkill insects off the front of cars, said Richard Zack, an entomologist at Washington State University. Their nests, which grow larger as the season progresses, should be plentiful as well, he added.

“I am seeing none of those things,” said Zack. “Their numbers are down considerably in our region. This is not a good year for wasps.”

The most common wasp species in Washington state are yellow jackets and paper wasps, both of which are scarce this summer, he said. Paper wasps have longer, more slender bodies than yellow jackets and display long hind legs that dangle when they fly. Both species produce large, annual colonies.

Less common is the bald-faced hornet, which is technically a yellow jacket, that makes large, papery nests shaped like footballs. “I don’t think that I have seen any of them this year,” Zack said.

And now that it’s late July, you don’t have to be an insect scientist to notice the dearth of wasps.

Lisa Jensen runs a small goat farm outside Pullman. Early each summer she hangs yellow wasp traps along the fence line bordering her property to prevent wasps from swarming around her animals and visiting grandchildren.

“Normally, the traps would be practically full by now. Instead, there’s only a few wasps in each one,” Jensen said. “Something is definitely amiss.”

And what might that be?

According to multiple studies, spring weather is the biggest factor affecting wasp populations from year to year. The cooler and wetter the weather, the more challenging it is for the queens to forage for food and build nests to establish colonies. This leads to fewer eggs and fewer wasps.

Yet this doesn’t explain the low wasp numbers right now. Spring 2025 wasn’t cool and wet overall. In fact, the season was “on the warm and dry side of normal,” said meteorologist Nic Loyd of Yakima.

So why the big decline? Most likely it’s due to 13 days in May.

From May 11-23, an interval of unsettled weather disrupted our otherwise mild and dry spring, said Loyd. During that time, daily temperatures ran cooler than normal and rain fell on 10 of those 13 days, he said. The coolest day was May 19, when a high of 54 degrees and low of 38 put Spokane at 11 degrees below average for that date.

Unfortunately for the region’s wasps, this period happened to be a “critical time” for the queens who had built small nests and were raising their first brood of worker wasps, said Zack. Once these daughter-workers matured, they would take care of the queen and her subsequent broods throughout summer.

But the colonies never reached that point.

“If the queens could not get out and find food, or if they got caught out in the cold and rain, their colonies would die,” Zack explained.

For those who spend time outdoors, having fewer wasps around is a good thing. Even so, Zack advised keeping watch. The colonies that managed to survive will continue to grow through the end of summer. Consequently, an increasing number of worker wasps will be busy searching for food before they begin to die as temperatures drop in autumn. Because wasps crave meat scraps for protein and laps of sugary drinks for a quick energy fix, they’re more likely to have run-ins with humans as August unfolds.

Even so, keep in mind that wasps desire meat, not to sting, wasp biologist Seirian Sumner writes in her book “Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps.” Try to stay calm in their presence instead of flailing your arms, which agitates them, she said.

Finally, if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a wasp’s stinger, it can be hard to appreciate how much good wasps do as they bob and weave around our outdoor gatherings and activities, Sumner said.

The reality is, wasps pollinate many plants and devour crop and garden pests such as aphids and caterpillars. “Without them, the planet would be pest-ridden,” she said.