Wasps are status driven insects having a precise social pecking order and those at the bottom of the ladder will risk their lives to get to the top.

Having an uncanny resemblance to the familiar rat race of our own corporate society, wasps are no strangers to overworking and burn out in the bid to make it to the top, said a team of zoologists at the University College of London (UCL).

Working on tropical hairy-faced hover wasps, the team revealed that there is an age-based queue to inheriting the prize of being queen and sole breeder.

Those older and higher up the chain had a greater chance of making it, but were found to be much lazier than those lower down the status queue.

Instead of risking their lives to find food, these would-be royals simply sat tight and waited for their opportunity to take over the throne.

UCL scientist Jeremy Field and his team discovered that wasps of lower status worked harder and took more risks for their queen as they had less to lose than those higher up the chain.

"Leaving the nest is dangerous," said Field of the UCL Biology Department, "We have found that the brighter the wasps future, the less likely it is to take risks by leaving the nest to forage for food."

Simon Robson, a senior lecturer and insect social behavioural researcher at the James Cook University in Queensland, said that some Australian native wasp species actually fight each other for the right to be queen.

"In Australia some wasp species have a dominance hierarchy where the wasp at the top beats up all other suitors to the throne," said Robson. "It is only when this wasp dies, that others get the chance to move up."

Robson points out that in this type of hierarchy the one at the top is usually the biggest wasp or the wasp who first starts the nest.