Unlike wasps, hornets don't plague picnic areas in the summer in search of food. By the early summer, with 25 to 30 workers and three to four combs such boxes are full. Thus the only possibility is to build outside the box or look elsewhere. In the latter case, workers fly out to search for suitable sites in the neighbouring area. If successful, some female workers fly with the queen to a new, larger cavity where a new secondary nest is established.
Workers fly between the new and the old nest tending for both.
The brood in the old nest are raised to adulthood while the construction of the new nest is underway. Eventually all the hornets move to the new secondary nest and the old nest becomes disused. How exactly the hornets are able to direct each other to the new nest site remains a mystery, although chemical signals are probably used. The workers gradually neglect the old queen and she eventually leaves the nest and, exhausted from oviposition, dies. The workers are now busy feeding the sexuals with protein and carbohydrates.