How do wasps navigate through the air?

I've been watching the wasps flying in %26amp; out of the wasps nest outside my door. They seem to fly off in all directions, none of them appear to be interested in near-by flowering plants, they all try to gain quite an altitude of 1st floor window-level as soon as they leave the nest and off they go far out of sight. How do their little brains tell them were to go and how to get back to the nest? Does science know the answer yet?

A very small proportion of the wasps seem to have trouble finding the roof entrance hole to the nest area and will buzz around for 30+ secs about a meter away despite the fact that there is a stream of wasps showing the way so I am guessing they are using scent trails more than vision?
How do wasps navigate through the air?
Bees and wasps use sunlight as a compass. They know the direction of the sun with respect to the direction that they are flying so they can find their way back.



Bees rely primarily on the Sun as a reference point for navigation, keeping track of their flight direction with respect to the Sun, and factoring out the effects of the winds that may be blowing them off course. The Sun is a difficult landmark for navigation because of its apparent motion from east to west, but bees are born knowing how to compensate for that. When a cloud obscures the Sun, bees use the patterns of ultraviolet polarized light in the sky to determine the Sun’s location. When an overcast obscures both Sun and sky, bees automatically switch to a third navigational system based on their mental map of the landmarks in their home range.





They also use landmarks as navigation points.
Reply:through the power of annoyance



they thrive and sense ppls annoyance and fear of them!
Reply:they use gnat nav.
Reply:wasp wasp
Reply:By body language and smell from other wasps in the colony



Yes they do know how it's done and there are lots of interesting sites on it on the Internet
Reply:All wasps after 2006 come with onStar installed.
Reply:bee - lines ????? ok i`ll go now
Reply:A whole lot
hosting

pores