Morning,

Having a clearout and boarding out the loft space I found a football sized wasps nest under the eaves. Browny white and apart from a random wasp flying around the ceiling light (could have come in through breather brick) no sign of activity.

Apart from bashing it with a pair of Bombers is there a way to decide whether it’s active? Equally are they easy to DIY remove or should I call for more pairs of Bombers and some professional help?

Cheers

Chris

In my experience you’d know if it was active – there will be wasps everywhere and you would see them entering the eaves from outside the house.

That being said, I wouldn’t fancy chancing it without a clear route of escape.

The council will send someone to remove for free if I remember rightly?

Councils don’t usually treat wasps for free.

If you want to diy, cover up as much as possible, plan your escape, and puff a load of ant powder around the entrance. It’s all a pro will probably do! You can get some spray stuff in a can from B&Q as well that you spray directly on the nest from a few metres away.

Neither worked for the one we had in a cavity, so we had to get a man in, who basically donned beekeeping garb, climbed a ladder, and used a bellows to puff ant powder into the entrance under the eaves.

We had one, just left it over summer and they never came back again. Made quite a racket while they were there though 🙂

step 1. commence video recording (landscape please, not portrait).
step 2. light nest with long taper.
step 3. post results here (please).

Or hose it down with a can of raid, and clap a bucket over it for a bit.

yeah, they will naturally die off towards the end of Sept/middle of Oct. If they aren’t causing you bother, I would leave them alone. The ones in my loft died off and have never returned.
You should be able to see if its active by looking for the exit to outside, there will be lots of coming and going around the middle of a sunny day!

If you can put up with it, it’s probably best to just leave it. If it isn’t active it shouldn’t be any bother.

Unlike bees, wasps don’t return to a nest the following year.*

*Mass generalisation that isn’t entirely true, but it’s basically true for the types of both your likely to encounter in the UK.

Thanks all. It’s not causing any bother so will keep an eye open around outside and just leave them to it.

Didn’t fancy being part of the Darwin Awards by attacking them with a pair of Bombers anyway.

Cheers

Wasps never reuse a nest … so you unless they are currently bothering you just leave it another month or so… they’ll all die and you can just stick a bin bag round it and cut it off end Oct latest.

You can also just use the powered and wait…

Last summer we had one in the kids play house inside the walls and the sids had removed the foam insulation.. I wanted the space back quickly so just covered up and combination of spray and powder and taking off the inside plywood panels to get to them.

Got stung a few times as they are canny buggers… as a swarm they are more intelligent than you think and they went round the outside and in through the door a few times and ambushed me from behind… luckily I don’t react much so I just put up with it for speed.

usual procedure:

(sounds like it’s an old one. If not I’d probably do something. We had one in a hard to get at roof space over our porch. No big deal until November when for a week or so there were pissed off wasps all over the place.)

We have evidence of several old ones in the loft. They don’t come back to the old nest, but nothing stopping them setting up home a metre away. Spent Dec / Jan finding hibernating queens under the insulation and killing them. Still missed several and one caused me to fall down the stairs and just catch my son as it was crawling on the step I was literally about to step on. (dumb I know but it was an instinctive reaction to throw myself down the stairs rather than step on one…)

Must have missed one in the most obscure part of the loft, was getting several wasps a day in the house till I got a chap out to zap it. Nest was still active for another 7 days or so.

Cost me £40.

Nuke them before they become a problem.

hmmmm similar issue with one in an air brick, which probably means its either in the cavity or under the floor.

Is the idea just to leave them? i emptied a can of raid and it had no effect. then a can of wd40 (my previous can of choice and has done me proud before) and we got a few crawing out.

Now im seeing at least 1 second in and out so they are getting more in numbers…….

Leave alone, get ant powder or call a chappie in?

last year I left the wasp trap out very late into the year, when I eventually turned out the cider/wasp soup there were a number of queens in there
lots less wasps round my way so far this year.

whats a wasp trap?

Nowt too it.

Wilkos did this foam spray that came out as a jet and would reach 10m.. just blast the nest from a distance then run away. Few hours later they’re all dead.

Was only about £3 and was excellent. I cant see it on the wilko site anymore but you can get it on amazon/ebay. Just look for wasp/hornet spray.

whats a wasp trap?

We used to leave a half full bottle of coke with the lid open, they’d fly in couldnt fly out and drown… Or if you were brave/stupid you’d quickly put the lid on and shake them all to death muahahaha.

Just had this problem.

Solved with ant/ wasp powder solution, they seemed to have gone away.

wasps under eaves? pay £50 for pest control?

gaffer tape a few bamboo canes together
gaffer tape a length of garden hose to the canes
load up one end of hose with wasp killer powder
point loaded end at busy nest entrance
blow like your favourite euphamism
repeat a couple of times to get “coverage”

wait a few days, repeat if necessary