Just noticed some wasps buzzing round the eaves of the house and upon investigation found a football sized nest in the loft.

Advise on what to do please!

Bit of googling suggests they’ll die off in the cold weather pretty soon so I could just leave? DIY treatment options seem to mention applying stuff at entrance of the nest which I’m not going to be able to access as it is facing away from my right at the lowest part of the loft. Wasps seem pretty plentiful and active – call in a pro?

Pic or it didn’t happen;

Contact the council they will remove it for you.

If they are not a problem or proliferating the house, leave them be(e).
Beautiful little things, wasps. They just get a bad press.

Beautiful little things, wasps.

Nah.

About half way down this page a post by tinners. Read that and consider your other options.

My parents had one – they ate most of a roof joist to build their nest. I’d have it removed professionally

Contact the council they will remove it for you.

Most, if not all stopped doing that years ago didn’t they? Mine certainly don’t do it.

About half way down this page a post by tinners. Read that and consider your other options.

I’m erring towards the pro option.

Most, if not all stopped doing that years ago didn’t they? Mine certainly don’t do it.

Ours certainly does.

Mine does too.. I had a nest in my shed.. Billy Boy Council Bod came around and drugged them and took away the nest..

All done within a couple of hours.

Fair enough, sorry though they were all the same us my council; “your property, your problem”

Council came and sorted ours out for nowt.

Burn the house down and move a minimum of one thousand miles away just in case.

Working at outide opposite a customers wasps nest, after a few hours i forgot they where there, and saw a loose hinge on the door to the shed they had taken up home i, i thought id just put a screw in the loose hinge, they went wild at the sound of the makita electric screwdriver, and swarmed out, luckily a dust pan and a shady tree stopped some of them, but still got stung it hurt a lot.

Leave them there, theyre lovely adaptable creatures, that eat various things.

Get yourself a Laura Ashley cushion and a palate knife. What’s the worst that could happen?

Did you pick Laura Ashley because you thought the floral design would pacify them?

I’m too darned stupid to think of that, Martin, but my rationale was giving them a soft ride down to the wheelie bin. I didn’t anticipate how fast they’d come out in full attack mode, or that they’d be stuck in the mesh liner of my shorts and repeatedly jab my globes with their venomous little arses at regular intervals as I lay flat in the back of the car, screaming my way to hospital.

How awful.

<giggles>

timmys – any permethrin powder dusted around the entrance will nail them
You can buy wasp killer powder but you may find most other insect powders like ant powder is the same stuff.
I did for two nests last week with the stuff.

They are harmless … 🙄

Leave it.

we have one in our loft space above our bathroom, we get maybe 1 wasp a day in the bathroom. more hassle to remove it IMO…

EDIT. And I HATE Wasps

Spray it with pepper spray

Rev a chainsaw next to it to scare them off.

Wasps are just poor maligned creatures – give their nest a great big hug of love

Really they are harmless. I get them regularly in my flat during the hot summer days so I just let them buzz around my standing lamp, until they got tired and started to crawl around. Then I just scooped them up with a piece of paper to let them out the window. 🙂

They are not Asian giant hornet you know. 😛

+1 for permethrin powder. 24hrs and wasps be gone. They may largely be harmless if ignored but I really don’t like the feckers.

Night + wasp spray is the cheap answer.
My parents had a soft fruit business, and used to have to deal with a couple nests a year, so I’ve seen them dealt with numerous times.

Wait until it’s dark so they’re all in the nest. Then depending on location, spray into the entrance and quickly block the entrance, or poke a hole in it with just a big enough screwdriver to get the spray in.
Powder is more effective, as the wasps will drag it into the nest, whereas spray tends not to fully kill the swarm.
Be warned, wasps will try and exit the nest when you disturb it, so spray in, and block as quick as possible while wearing thick gloves.

The alternative if the nest is removable i.e. on a branch, is to wait until dark, carefully cut the branch, then holding the nest in front of you, walk backwards (wasps will come out, but they’ll typically only hover as they’ll be disorientated and you don’t want to be walking into them). Then you can bag/burn the nest. Or throw it into some hens/chickens, ensuring the nest bursts on landing. Hens will quite happily tear it apart to get the larvae.

If you have to deal with them during the day, then you really want your entire body covered, along with a smoke gun. The last thing you really want is an irate swarm, and lots of exposed skin!

Councils won’t touch bees, are you sure that is not what you’re thinking of? They should do wasps, but you’ll probably have to pay, ours charge about £55, I think.

Thanks for advice

Don’t think her who must be obeyed is going to let me leave it however cuddly wasps are.

The inaccessibility of the nest due to the low ceiling, and particularly the entrance being on the far side, is going to make a fast retreat harder than I am comfortable with to be honest.

From my Councils website;
“We do not provide a pest control service. Responsibility for dealing with a pest problem lies with the owner of the property or the land where the pest problem is occurring.

If you are a property owner and have a pest problem, you will need to engage a private pest control contractor. ”

It’s football sized for a reason.

Hoof it across the loft and see what happens.

Post video.

We had a next last near the roof of the house. They were only a problem when it was windy, and they were blown off track into any open windows.

I could see them they were coming in and out through a small gap in the facia under the guttering, so one evening went they were in bed, I went up and sprayed some powder in. Next day, looked up and not a sign.

Later that day though I could hear them through the loft hatch, all buzzing angrily around in the attic.

My wife suggested that I go up to the attic and deal with them, but there was absolutely no way I was doing that.

Luckily, it was getting towards the end of the wasp season though and so they naturally died off a few weeks after.

If the nest isn’t somewhere where you can spray it and then quickly beat a hasty retreat, I would leave it to a pest control professional!

is going to make a fast retreat harder than I am comfortable with to be honest.

Trust me, unless you’re tied to industrial stength bungee cord, stretched to it’s limit from a downstairs anchor point and with the ability to recoil your torso downstairs in milliseconds at the first sight of an emerging wasp, these are wise words.

Don’t think her who must be obeyed is going to let me leave it however cuddly wasps are.

They will all be dead anyway in a few weeks….

If you can see where they’re going in and out of the roof you might be able to get them from outside. Ant powder containing permethrin will kill them if you can get it onto the wasps as they fly into the nest. They carry it in on their bodies and it kills the nest. Works best if you can get it on the actual entrance to the nest but I’ve managed to kill a few nests with repeated treatment of the access point in a wall, eaves etc. Very nasty powder though. Also, they will be calmer in the evening so you get a better chance of getting a decent amount of powder in before they notice you.

Don’t use the silly spray/mousse stuff that you apply directly – it doesn’t work and you’re more likely to antagonize them.

The powder is the best solution I’ve come across, douse their entrance (even if it is the one they use to get in and out of the roof rather than the nest itself). Be sure to have an escape route ready as they usually go apeshit for an hour or so, then they die off and/or abandon the nest.

The alternative if the nest is removable i.e. on a branch, is to wait until dark, carefully cut the branch, then holding the nest in front of you, walk backwards

and the reward for the most mental advice of the day goes to…..

Nah, sounds very viable to me. Get a friend to video it though and post the results her. Please…

It has been known to go wrong, which is why you used to always walk the route in daylight first, just to ensure you knew every trip hazard. If it was a particularly big nest, the bee suit would be used just in case of any mishap, although my dad’s mate did manage to get a wasp inside the mask one night.

I’ve seen it done a few times with nests in the raspberries. Big benefit was you got rid of the whole colony in one go, instead of risking having lots of irate wasps and only a partially killed colony around for days.