Polistes nimpha is a eusocial paper wasp found all over Europe, with particular sightings in Turkey, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia.

[3] The climate in these areas is relatively cold and snowy in the winter, while summers are usually hot and dry, with steppe vegetation.

Polistes members exhibit a wide range of varying black and yellow color patterns.

[2] Wasps of the genus Polistes (Latreille, 1802) are good examples for studying alternative phenotypes in social insects.

In females, the color of the malar area (between the mandible and compound eye) is yellow and the 6th gastral sternum is black.

In males, the clypeus (the broad plate at the front of the head) has lateral ridges and the antennal segments are dark at the tips.

[1] The species uses a mixture of oral secretions and plant fibers, called paper pulp, to build their nests.

By the end of autumn, only the future foundresses are left to survive the winter and begin the cycle again in June.

Foragers bring food (prey and nectar) and building materials (wood pulp and water) into the nest and give them to the workers.

However, if a forager switches to a different kind of load, it usually belongs to the same functional group (food or net materials).

The first group is builders: workers who prefer hunting to building and who tend to pass proteinaceous food to other individuals.

[10] The behavior and process of nest building consists of foragers delivering the paper material to the construction place; the foundress moving over the area and sometimes exhibiting wagging and/or trapping movements with its abdomen; the foundress grasping the entire amount of materials or some part of it; and the construction of the petiole, cell base, or cell wall.

Some examples of these effects include: long absences of rain, cold winters, predators and parasitoids.

These pioneering colonies are the first to be attacked by entomophages, such as the parasitic wasp L. argiolus, the hornet Vespa crabro, and ants.

Infested individuals are inferior in size to non-infested females, and they exhibit a lighter pigment on the mesoscutum.

[11] In the late summer, males patrol and defend small areas of territory, usually around hedges and bushes.

Then he rotates in a circle while dragging the ventral part of his abdomen, ending with his head facing in the opposite direction.

The exocrine glands, found in the sternal gastral hypodermis of males, are the site for biosynthesis and storage of various excretions.

These secretory glands are involved in the production of a wide range of substances, such as repellent, venom in females, and potentially sexual pheromones in males.

Males can take on aggressive postures before attacking; they exhibit open mandibles and raised wings and antennae.

Territories of male Polistes nimpha seem to be purely symbolic and are comparable to leks of vertebrates, as well as the pheromone-marked sites of many bees.

The criteria for these locations depend on accessibility to the nests, appropriate hibernacula, foraging areas, hilltops, landmarks and other environmental necessities.

Throughout September and October, males congregate in low enclosure walls, fences, or shrub and tree hedges in order to defend and scent-mark selected perches.

Individual territorial boundaries inevitably overlap and differ depending on the density and aggressiveness of males.

An infestation with Elasmus schmitti consists of dark gray covers in the cells, with the parasitoid meconium prior to pupation.

Polistes nimpha may coexist with the parasitoids, but this stability depends on annual changes in their life cycles, as well as on the various features of the host habitat, since this can directly affect the intensity of predation.

[15] The Polistes nimpha is prey to not only parasitoids, but also to entomophages, such as the parasitic wasp L. argiolus, the hornet Vespa crabro, and ants.