Hornets are very protective of their colony and will usually attack and sting if someone approaches within 3 feet of the nest. The size of a hornet's nest and the hornets' reputation is often sufficient to alarm people. The baldfaced hornet, found in Alabama, is about 2/3 inch long and black with whitish markings. It is technically a yellowjacket but builds a very distinctive pear-shaped, basketball-sized nest covered with grayish paperlike material. In the spring the queen emerges from hibernation and searches for a suitable nesting site. She then collects wood or other vegetable fiber from nearby plants and chews it into a paperlike substance for constructing a comb of a few shallow cells (later enlarged into a nest). In each cell she lays an egg and then protects the resulting larvae, feeding them daily with freshly killed insects. After 12 to 18 days, the larvae spin cocoon caps over their cells and transform into pupae. When adults emerge about 12 days later, they serve as the first brood of workers, and the queen resumes egg laying.