Richie Biddix, age 12, of Marion, N.C., for her question:

WHAT HAPPENS TO WASPS IN WINTER?

Unlike a bee colony in a hive, a wasp colony lasts only through the summer. Most wasps store no food and in the fall all the members die except a crop of young queens. These are the wasps which will be the mothers of new colonies.

One spring day, a queen comes out of the nook or crevice where she has slept through the winter, and begins to build a new home. First she makes a few cells shaped like cones and surrounds them with a wall made of two or three layers of paper. In each cell, she lays an egg.

The larvae which hatch from the eggs are plump, soft grubs. The queen tends them carefully. Then the larvae spin tough cocoons. In about 10 days, they come out of the cocoons as full grown wasps.