We had a melon sized nest in our porch. After reading up on the subject, I sprayed powder at the entry point to encourage the wee feckers to drag powder into the nest. Stage two was a bottle of amonia decanted into a Cif spray bottle, this wasn’t so effective but did cause a few to get fairly angry. Stage 3 was the pukka foam wasp killer, which dissolves the nest. Takes quite a while and alot of foam for the inside structure / larvae to become exposed. More ammonia, powder and foam until they were all dead. I wore full waterproofs, heavy rubber gloves, boots, with the wrists and ankles duct taped, oh and a balaclava and diving mask. Didn’t get stung but the neighbours were amused.

Couple of smoke bombs in the shed first to make them drowsy then get your rage on with the spray can.

Edit to add; also do it in the evening.

Dose them with powder last thing at night if all quiet for 2 or 3 nights and should stop any activity, leave shed door open too to make it colder and encourage them to ‘go to sleep’ before dosing.

Worked on several nests.

Things of beauty

Get this guy to do it

My mother had a nest in the roof. It was a black cloud of continual movement of the peskies humming away. We sent a guy into the loft to get rid. He said is was as big as an old domestic rubbish bin in diameter and about 2 ft tall 😯
He had never seen such a huge nest. He probed it with the powder and even though he covered up, they managed to sting him a couple of times. Nest died and we left it there. I think its just disintegrated now over the years.

I knew that this topic would crop up one day. Perhaps I should just strongly advise that you pay someone to do it and leave it at that, but I might as well give you my story in case it helps to make up your mind.
A couple of years ago, I was putting some stuff in the attic and noticed that there were quite a few wasps around. Lots, in fact. So I quickly retreated to the ladder in the hatch (Not easy. Loft not lined to had to tiptoe quickly across the rafters, heel to toe style, then peer back in with a torch). I noticed the melon sized orb stuck to one of the rafters and guessed it was a nest. So I closed the hatch and reported back to Mrs T. We both agreed that we’d sleep a lot easier if the nest was removed. I went through the same thought processes as you. Mrs T insisted we pay some one to do it, whereas I thought it was money down the drain for something I could easily do myself.
To cut a long story short, I reached the decision that the best way to do it was to prize it off the rafter using one of Mrs T’s palate knives (the ones you use to smooth icing over a cake) and then gently carry it – on a small, soft, Laura Ashley cushion – across the floor joist, down the ladder and through the house to a wheelie bin which would be waiting by the back door with lid open ready to gently tip the cushion and dispose of the nest. I pictured myself doing a triumphant “Voila!” in front of an adoring MrsT who would be overcome by my manly skills. In retrospect, I should have run this idea past Mrs T first.
Mrs T was peeling spuds at the time of the incident. She says that, looking back on it, she should have known that I was up to something because the house fell very silent. She says that she first became aware that things had gone wrong was when she heard swearing and a really loud crashing noise – as if you’d lured a buckaroo pony into the loft and jabbed its backside with a hatpin before leaving it to kick the joists down. After about 10 minutes, curiosity got the better of her and she decided to investigate. I’m quite proud of the fact that, throughout the ordeal, I managed to hold on to the cushion, arms outstretched, until I got to the hatch. Had I not shot down the hatch like the shell from a howitzer and hurt my arms, legs and head in the process, I might not have dropped the nest on the landing floor.
Anyway, the house ended up having a bigger wasp problem, such that we spent a few nights decamped with the in-laws and I’m pretty sure that when I got back from A&E with a face that was double normal size (after an adrenalin shot that I didn’t even notice because I looked like the worst case of chicken pox you’ve ever seen) that I offered no resistance to getting someone in to sort it properly at any cost.
Never again. Get someone in. Seriously.

Thank you tinners, I’ve not cried with laughter for some time until tonight….

Tinners wins the interweb today with that story 🙂

I dispatched a nest last summer after my son dug through it by accident, the feckers swarmed and stung him and his sister about 7-8 times each, my wife knew something serious had happened when i came running up the garden with a child under each arm. Was worried about the lad for a short period, we nearly headed to A&E he reacted that badly. When we all calmed down, it transpired I had been stung three times but not noticed with the adrenalin rush! Suffice to say things got personal, no way I was getting someone to do the dirty work 😉

Went through ideas involving fireworks, petrol or a big spade. Ended up using three cans of the spray, did it in the evening, they got quite woozy on the fumes and it became a game of shooting them out of the air.

Wear lots of thick clothes, I had my kayaking dry suit on, I looked a right tit, jeans, two buffs to form a balaclava, and gardening gloves.

I was going to dig the nest out and dispose of it, but the local crack fox got there first and destroyed it for me. I now have a grudging respect for said fox, though he keeps leaving me presents in the garden…

Stop the internet, Tinners has won!

That was an awesome story Tinners!

I had one in the shed! Was a golf ball size!! Fly spray and hit it…….. But then I could have just stood on it!!

gently carry it – on a small, soft, Laura Ashley cushion – across the floor joist, down the ladder and through the house

What %age chance did you give yourself of being successful in this? Darwin award near miss I say. 😀

What use is a shed the size of a melon ?

Part of the same issue–one would be well advised to use caution in dealing with wasps/hornets/bees, etc. as it can turn tragic. Just last week, a rancher near here had a full grown mare and her 2 month old colt killed by Africanized honeybees when they apparently disturbed a swarm.

Surely unless he’s keeping horsies in his shed, it’s unlikely to be a similar outcome?

If he is then I think there are bigger issues with animal cruelty.

As the first youtube video showed – tackle it at night. The wasps are all asleep then and seem to take a while to wake up.

I had one in the roof. The wasps were coming out from under one of the roof tiles. I got a ladder and a tub of puffy powder from B&Q. 2am and armed with a shorts, t-shirts and an absolute skinfull I blasted as much powder in the hole before i legged it.

Didn’t get very far as my equally drunk mate was doubled over in hysterics and I ran straight into him! No response from the wasps at all. They all died by the morning. Our wives were not happy.

The can of squirty stuff looks like a better idea than powder.

I also hit one with a hoe. It was smaller than a tennis ball but still full of wasps. The weird thing was the queen went mental and charged about stinging all the other wasps to death?! I then took her out with a tennis racket. I do not recommend this method.

Tinners, that was awesome. Properly funny.

I blew a nest up a few years ago with a large French banger – you know, the kind you smuggle home on the bus back from a school ski trip. It was inside one of our big pampas grass bushes. I suspended the charge from a long bamboo cane in front of the nest entrance and lit the fuse with a petrol soaked rag on the end of another cane. Fuse lit & I scarpered. After a few seconds the charge went off & that was that. No more nest or wasps. Sorted.

Whatever you do, make sure you have someone to wave an emergency union flag.

I accidentally dug up a wood wasp / hornets’ nest trying to remove a stump from my dad’s garden, using a pickaxe. Happily swinging away one moment, running from a very cross swarm the next. Got stung to buggery.

He happened to be married to a traditional Chinese medicine doctor at the time and she chased after me (again) with all kinds of weird salves and potions. Doubly crap.

FFS Tinners – where is the video ??? 👿

(when I was a kid we found a biggish nest in a bank of earth. They were enlarging it and wasps kept coming out, carrying little bits of soil, lumbering like fully-loaded B52s. Course, we got the badminton set out

… we were abviously quite good at it, ‘cos it was about 10 minutes later that a hit squad came out, unladen and quite cross. My mate took the hit(s). We didn’t do it again.)

Well I was all sorted to get the pros in but then I had another look at it tonight and thought stop being such a Jessie, kill it yourself then triumphantly tell the wife thereby getting extra love points and also save £45 which I can spend on bike bits……. Or on overpriced hospital TV if it all goes wrong.

Definitely not going for the Tinners approach, I mean WTF, did you not even have the teeniest tiniest inkling of a thought that that approach could end in tears?!

There’s two approaches I could take…

1 use a foam and leg it hoping they don’t swarm out before I reach the door. Or…

2 I could reach part of the nest from the door with something like a hoe. If I get one of those one shot aerosols that locks ‘on’ so it releases all its contents once activated, I could set that off, walk to the door then batter nest with hoe and shut door!?!

Are all wasp sprays the same, any recommendations? A mate advised Digrain stuff, but nippon or rentokil is a bit cheaper.

Tinners thanks for that, you genuinely just had my wife and I both crying with laughter over that one. 😆

As it happens I dispatched a small nest from my son’s play house just this week using a very similar method to a point.
I used a metal rule But! I caught it in a bucket and put a box on top of it there and then, no escapees. I then dumped it in a ditch. It was only tennis ball size though.

The little feckers have started building again already though, in exactly the same spot 👿

Just man up and grab it and hoy it into your neighbours garden. Wasps respect a firm hand.

😀

That made me snort with laughter, which woke up my six week old daughter, leading to my wife giving me a bollocking, so it somehow seems less funny now 🙁

Could you not drill a hole in the shed near the nest, feed a hosepipe in and nuke them from orbit[i]spray them with insecticide [/i]from a safe distance?

“What %age chance did you give yourself of being successful in this?”
I thought they’d appreciate the comfort. Besides which, I thought I’d be pretty sprightly in my running shorts (the ones with the mesh liner that cradle the twins so that you don’t need to wear underpants – which is another story because a couple of the blighters became trapped in the liner and began repeatedly jabbing my jojonas, which added a frisson of urgency to my departure down the ladder).

Brilliant Tinners.

Well that’s not how to do it.

I’m on a better connection so to add. If they aren’t causing an issue leave them bee but if they are dispose of them in a sensible manner, Wasp aren’t taken much by cushions and other such trinkets. I’ve disposed of 2 so far this year the first was tiny maybe golf ball sized so just knocked it to the floor and stamped on it. The other I found last week whilst I was removing the washing line pole to make it more stable. I’d been digging on for about 10 minutes and scraping rocks and old cement out by hand. Once I pulled the pole free of the ground there was a Grapefruit sized on under it, they didn’t seem bothered at all about what I was doing. Now the whole was planned to filled with cement so it had to go. The bloody terrier wanted amongst them as it’s ball shaped and in a hole the 2 greatest things combined in one as far as he’s concerned. He was grabbed an pushed into the house from where I returned with white spirit, lint and matches. Covered the nest in white spirit, soaked the lint in it and then through it on fire into the whole. No more wasps nest but about 40-50 pissed off wasps appeared a few minutes later.

leave them bee

😐

Think I’m going to bookmark this page Tinners, for when I’ve had a really Rubbish day at work and need cheering up 🙂

whats the worst that could happen?

The spider managed to escape apparently.

Tinners.

Are all wasp sprays the same, any recommendations? A mate advised Digrain stuff, but nippon or rentokil is a bit cheaper.

If you can get it go for the Digrain. Their wasp nest destroying spray actually has kickback its so powerful. Plus the Digrain stuff comes in bigger cans.

tinners.. that had me in tears. 😆

Bunch of pansies around here. I once stepped on a wasps nest hidden in the ground (WTF i didnt know this happened). Whilst chatting to my pals with my bike shouldered (We were on a section we had to walk) i felt several tickly sensations. I was fully lycrad up and let me tell you, lycra is not the garment of choice when dealing with wasps. I dont know why but it took an age for my head to compute the sensations because i wasnt looking down. When i did i nearly pooed my pants. From my belly down was being attacked by a swarm of wasps and i was happily stood there chatting to my pals.

Next thing you know a mountain bike is flying through the air and i am running down a hill covered in wasps and screaming like a little girl. They only seemed to leave me be when i got to a river nearby and waded in.

I know for a fact i am not alergic but i had at least 30-40 stings and i think i had a bit of an adrenulin rush cos the rest of the ride i was buzzing 🙂

TBH it wasnt ‘that’ bad but i wouldnt want it to happen again. Best advice would be to make sure you have a ‘clean’ getaway if things do go wrong.

I got stung by a bee a few years back and it put me on my backside for a couple of minutes. I dread to think what would happen if I got zapped by 30 wasps.

I got stung by a bee a few years back

I got stung by a bee a few years back too. Eight quid for a jar of honey, the stripy bastard.

It was itchy more than anything. My hip carried a few scars for quite a while but the rest werent much worse than falling in a nettle patch. Admittedly i would have to do the hokey cokey in the nettle patch to really make it similar but it wasnt that bad. The thing that got me was the way my brain didnt register the stings as anything other than an itch untill i looked down and realised they were wasps

In answer to the original question….

I’ve just done the same. I used Wasp/Ant powder and sprayed it in the entrance to the nest. They take the powder in themselves. I waited until evening when it was cool and they were less lively.

It needed a repeat treatment a 2nd day but only 5-10 came out slowly and as long as you stand still and don’t run about screaming like you are in mortal peril and having an epileptic fit at the same time, they don’t sting you.

£3 and the job was done.

J

johni + 1 (or rather two as I’ve dealt with two nests this way both underground).
Although I think the shed hanging one would be more tricky; the 1 shed hanging one I just left until winter and they all died. I didn’t have to move though.

So maybe get a man in as you’re moving.