Wow: great picture

Hi dighappy. Those poor wasps were distraught because the queen might have absconded. It is a bit early, but with things as dry as they are, maybe she figured she'd better burrow while the digging was good. After the queen leaves, they are generally disorganized and nasty. The few last larvae hatch without a purpose, and they usually leave the nest. A few might stay behind, but they don't take care of the brood, leaving the last dozen grubs to die. It is at this time that the birds sense the goings on and make a hole in the side of the nest to get at the comb, something they wouldn't dare do to a functioning colony. The ones on your light were cold, tired and hungry and pi$$ed off that the queen left (if I can anthropomorphize a bit). At any rate, if you leave an undisturbed area in the woods nearby where the queen might be hibernating, she will come back in the spring and do it all over in a new nest.

there will be many new queens next year when the new queens go off and hibernate. I have a stack of pallets that i cut up for kindling and the hornets and yellow jackets land on them and chew on the wood to make their nests so in the spring I just stand by the stack with a fly swatter and kill each queen as she lands to chew. In the early spring the only hornets and yellow jackets that you see are queens so each one you kill can prevent hundreds form being born. I killed 8 hornet queens and 70 yellow jacket queens this spring. the yellow jacket queens are almost twice the size of the regular yellow jackets. When I was a kid i'd get a dormant yellow jacket from the woodpile and tie some floss around 1 of it's back legs and then tie the other end on the door knob inside the house it was cool when it thawed out it would be flying around on the end of the string. Anyway that's all bye