preserved even after she leaves. Queen loss Queen loss is a crisis for a colony of social insects, which may cause increased aggression and work inefficiencies. Also, if the colony can produce a new queen, it could be slow to produce eggs. After queen loss, replacement queens do not mate in the 12 days following queen removal and few had mature eggs in their ovaries. After a month, most replacement queens develop ovaries and mate. Nest growth decreases with colonies that lose their queen, which can be expected if increased dominance behavior interfered with other essential behaviors or if the new queen is not competent at egg laying. Among queenless colonies of P. dominula, individuals demonstrated an increased level of chewing and climbing, but not of lunging and biting. These are all dominance behaviors. No difference of foraging behaviors occurs between colonies with and without queens. Subordinates are kept reproductively suppressed enough not to be a threat to the existing queen, as indicated by the high cost of queen replacement. Nest adoption Adoption is a result of three situations: when queens lose their nests and "make the best of a bad situation"; workers leave multiple-foundress nests; and subordinates employ a "sit-and-wait" strategy, waiting for nests to be abandoned. Nests are orphaned when the adult wasps die while taking care of their nest, leaving an immature brood. Orphaned nests allow a new wasp to gain status as queen without a fight. Females that adopt nests are less cooperative and expend less energy than those that found nests. Spring foundresses sometimes found colonies alone, form associations with others, take over established conspecific colonies, or even adopt abandoned nests. Females would adopt an abandoned nest if they lost their nest due to predation or other damage or if they waited to adopt an orphaned nest rather than found their own. Females engaging in the "sit-and-wait" reproductive strategy adopted the most mature nest rather than the nest with an increased probability of containing kin (from the same population). Females prioritize the quality of the nest over rescuing possible kin from another abandoned nest. Females demonstrate a preference for mature nests and nests with a large proportion of fourth- and fifth-instar larvae. When a female adopts an orphaned nest, she destroys the existing eggs and larvae, but allows older larvae and pupae to complete development. Adopting a nest maximizes the potential of possessing a mature