What is the lifespan of a hornet?

What is the lifespan of a hornet depends on caste and species, with workers living shorter and queens living much longer. For social hornets like bald-faced hornets, European hornets, and Asian giant hornets, workers that build the nest, forage, and defend the colony live about 3 to 4 weeks in summer due to hard work, predation, and wing wear, similar to wasps. Males or drones live a few weeks and die after mating in fall. The queen has the longest lifespan, fertilized queens overwinter in sheltered places like attics, under bark, in leaf litter, or in wall cavities, surviving winter in a dormant state for several months, then emerge in spring to start a new colony, and live about 10 to 12 months total, from late summer when they mate until the following fall when they produce new queens and die. Colonies themselves are annual, starting in spring when queen builds small paper nest and lays eggs, growing through summer to peak in late summer with hundreds to thousands of workers, and dying in fall with first frost, leaving only new mated queens to overwinter and restart cycle. So workers live weeks, queens live up to a year, and colony lasts one season, with no reuse of old nests the next year.