Hive of activity

Langstone, Hampshire As soon as the first workers hatched out, they took over nest building and foraging duties, leaving the queen to her egg laying

For the past two months I have been watching the construction of a hornets' nest inside a bird box in my garden. The hive has grown from a small cluster of barnacle-like cells cupped in a striated cone, to layers of comb encased in a woodpulp-and-saliva papier-michi(C)-like shell that now fills the cavity.

For several weeks the queen toiled alone, initially carrying nest material into the box, then later the headless, wingless corpses of moths, bees and other species of wasp to feed her brood.

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