Hornet vs Wasp: Size, Color, Nests and Sting Compared

Key differences at a glance

“Wasp” is a broad name covering tens of thousands of species, most of them solitary. The familiar social wasps that build paper nests belong to the family Vespidae. Within it, the subfamily Vespinae includes three main groups: the true hornets (Vespa), the yellowjackets and common wasps (Vespula), and the aerial yellowjackets (Dolichovespula).

This comparison sets the European hornet, the only hornet native to most of Europe, against the common wasp, the everyday picnic wasp of Europe. In North America, the common wasp’s place is taken by close relatives such as the common yellowjacket, Vespula alascensis, which was long thought to be the same species.

Names can mislead. In North America the insect many people call a hornet is the bald-faced hornet, but it is really an aerial yellowjacket, Dolichovespula maculata, black with ivory-white markings. The only true hornet living widely in North America is the introduced European hornet.

Size: which is bigger?

Hornets are clearly bigger. A European hornet worker is 18–25 mm (0.7–1 in) long, and a queen can reach 35 mm (1.4 in). A common wasp worker is about 12–17 mm (0.5–0.7 in) and a queen about 20 mm (0.8 in). A hornet worker is therefore often longer than a common wasp queen.

Bulk differs even more than length. A hornet worker’s thorax is nearly twice as wide as a common wasp worker’s, so a hornet looks heavy and slow in the air, with a deeper, louder buzz. Hornets also have a broad top to the head behind the eyes, called the vertex, which gives the head a boxy look.

Color and markings

European hornet. The head and thorax are dark brown to black with reddish-brown patches, and the face is yellow. The abdomen is mostly yellow with brown or black marks, and the front of its first segment is reddish-brown. The wings have an orange-brown tint, so the overall impression is warm brown and yellow.

Common wasp. The body is bright lemon yellow and glossy black, with sharp bands across the abdomen and black dots on the yellow areas. The yellow face usually has a single black mark shaped like an anchor or dagger. There is no reddish brown at all.

The Asian hornet, now spreading in Europe, is different again: it is mostly dark brown to black, with a single broad orange band on the abdomen and yellow-tipped legs.

Nests and colony size

Both insects build nests of paper made from chewed wood mixed with saliva, but in different places and on different scales.

The European hornet nests in dark, dry cavities above ground, such as hollow trees, bird boxes, attics and sheds. Its paper is often brown and orange because the workers use soft, rotten wood, and the outer envelope is usually left open at the bottom. Even a large nest usually holds only a few hundred hornets at once, with up to about 700 workers at the peak.

The common wasp often nests underground in an old rodent burrow, or in roof spaces, wall cavities and hedges. Its nest is tan or buff, made from wood scraped from fences, sheds and dead branches, and is wrapped in a scalloped, shell-like envelope with a small entrance hole. A large nest can hold several thousand workers by late summer.

Both colonies last a single season. Only young mated queens survive the winter, hibernating alone, and the old nest is never reused.

Night flying

One of the most surprising differences is the working day. European hornets keep flying at dusk and even on warm, bright nights, at light levels about 100 times dimmer than common wasps can manage, and they often turn up at lit windows. Common wasps stop flying in the brighter part of twilight and stay in the nest at night. See Do hornets fly at night? for the research behind this.

Temperament: which is more aggressive?

Away from the nest, the common wasp is usually the bigger nuisance. Adult common wasps live on sugar, and in late summer, when the colony stops producing larvae that give them a sweet secretion, workers search for fruit, jam and soft drinks and often land on food and people.

European hornets also drink sugary liquids, mainly tree sap and juice from fallen fruit, but they come to picnics far less often. When they do appear at tables or fruit trees, they are often hunting the wasps that gather there, because hornets catch common wasps and yellowjackets to feed their own larvae.

Near the nest, both are defensive and will sting to protect the colony. Hornet colonies usually defend a zone of a few meters around the entrance, and vibration or repeated disturbance makes either species more likely to attack.

Which sting is worse?

Both have a smooth stinger and can sting more than once, and only females can sting. A hornet sting is often described as slightly more painful, partly because hornet venom contains acetylcholine, which intensifies pain. However, the venom is not more toxic. Laboratory tests on mice suggest European hornet venom is, gram for gram, weaker than honey bee venom, and the old saying that three hornet stings can kill a person is a myth.

The real risk from either insect is an allergic reaction. Hornet and wasp venoms share most of their allergens, so someone allergic to one is usually allergic to the other. Anyone who has trouble breathing or swelling of the face or throat after a sting should seek emergency medical help immediately by calling 911 in the US, 112 in the EU or 999 in the UK.

Other hornets and wasps to know

• Asian or yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina): slightly smaller than the European hornet and much darker, invasive in Europe since about 2004 and a predator of honey bees.
• Northern giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia): the world’s largest hornet, with queens over 5 cm (2 in) long, native to East and South Asia; it was found in the Pacific Northwest in 2019 and declared eradicated from the US in 2024.
• Oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis): a reddish-brown hornet with yellow bands, found in southeastern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
• German wasp (Vespula germanica): very similar to the common wasp, but its face usually has three small black dots instead of an anchor mark.

For the difference between wasps and bees, see bee vs wasp.