Tonight's dinner entertainment was a life and death drama with the role of the protagonist being played by a Bald-faced Hornet.  She had been attracted to the wasp traps we had set out, which had managed to gather quite a crop of flies. The hornet spent quite a bit of the time trying to catch the flies she could see crawling on the inside of the plastic container.  As we watched she was joined by a second Bald-faced Hornet and there was an immediate fight, both of the rolling around on the deck until eventually one of them left.  A few minutes later a wasp arrived and the Bald-faced Hornet quickly jumped on it, there was another roll-around scuffle on the deck that resulted in the hornet flying off with the corpse of the wasp.   Later that evening I watched a Bald-faced Hornet walking around on the planter of Pitcher Plants, coming dangerously close to entering the pitcher, possibly attracted to the other insects already in the pitchers.

Dolichovespula maculata makes round paper nests,  that can contain up to 700 workers.   Active hunters they also feed on nectar.