wasp nest problem

MrsBartolozzi

Our environmental health wouldn't do it when we phoned them about a different nest last year. We were told to look in the yellow pages. Cost £40 to get a guy out so we decided to try doing it ourselves when we got another one this year. Cost less than a fiver.

jules1964

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

Our environmental health wouldn't do it when we phoned them about a different nest last year. We were told to look in the yellow pages. Cost £40 to get a guy out so we decided to try doing it ourselves when we got another one this year. Cost less than a fiver.

your brave lol

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I'd rather go skinny dipping with swarms of Jellyfish and flotillas of leeches... Cannot for the life of me think of anything worth budging a sackfull of wasps for...

Davesnave

Tonight, I did some research & learned that my 'German mining wasps' are, in fact, just German wasps, so not supposedly any more docile than the 'English' variety. In that case, my earlier post was a certain amount of cobblers, but the wasps remain very docile.

German wasp

Vespula germanica

This is one of the social wasps which build football shaped nests of wood pulp paper which can contain hundreds, even thousands of egg cells. Some species suspend their nests from branches or overhead beams but this particular species builds underground, initially taking over an old mouse hole or similar cavity, before excavating a considerable chamber - up to a foot across, to house the colony.

I need to keep the lawns cut to receive all my rental deposit back at the end of the month, so this evening I experimented by mowing close to, and then right over the top of the nest in the top lawn.

A few wasps may have been killed by the Flymo as it went over the hole, but all that happened was that about 30 of them buzzed around the entrance for a minute or so, then they just carried on as if nothing had happened. They didn't attempt to attack me or the mower, even when it was cutting close to the entrance to the nest.

It seems like the wasp nests here are still quite small, and the wasps are too busy to be aggressive, but that might change as their diet begins to include rotting fruit with an alcohol content. I think it's autumn when the trouble starts. By then, there's more of them.

My wasps wouldn't really require a skilled operative and £45 to clear them, but now would seem a good time to act, if anyone wants want to be rid.

Lotus-eater

Davesnave wrote: »

I experimented by mowing close to, and then right over the top of the nest in the top lawn.

A few wasps may have been killed by the Flymo as it went over the hole, but all that happened was that about 30 of them buzzed around the entrance for a minute or so, then they just carried on as if nothing had happened. They didn't attempt to attack me or the mower, even when it was cutting close to the entrance to the nest.

It seems like the wasp nests here are still quite small, and the wasps are too busy to be aggressive, but that might change as their diet begins to include rotting fruit with an alcohol content. I think it's autumn when the trouble starts. By then, there's more of them.

Although I didn't say it on another thread, I too did mow over the top of my wasp nest last year once or twice, I didn't say it on here, because I didn't want anyone to repeat my experiment and get stung, I had the same experience as you, not alot really.
Same as you Dave I did it earlier in the year and left it later, not down to any reasoning, just because I didn't want to p1ss them off and push my luck

I never thought about wasps getting drunk on fruit, but this article says they do.
“At the moment they are doing a lot of natural pest control, which is quite beneficial in the garden but later in the year they start feeding on fermenting fruit, which is, of course, alcohol. And just like human slobs, when they are drunk they start getting aggressive.”
Just like drunk humans who lose their keys after a heavy night out wasps can forget where they live. “If you have a row of semi-detached houses the wasps are not always brilliant at homing,” he say

Still, people are to blame as well
Even then, a belligerent wasp is only a danger if you make it one. We all know people who will leap up at the sight of a wasp, flailing their arms around and refusing to believe that it’s not going to sting them, despite the obvious fact that the non-flailers are not getting stung

All taken from
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/116985/Invasion-of-the-wasps-
I know it's the Express, sorry for not searching further down the internet pipe

jules1964

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I'd rather go skinny dipping with swarms of Jellyfish and flotillas of leeches... Cannot for the life of me think of anything worth budging a sackfull of wasps for...

I so agree with you, I hate wasps with a passion!!!

One thing I would say to the people who are mowing over the nests and maybe killing a few. When a wasp is killed, I saw this on wildlife programme. They leave a smell outside of the nest which the others can smell and could make them attack thinking there nest is being attacked. This could make them angry and then attack. Please be careful folks as people have been know to die from one wasp sting if they have a reaction, let alone by a large amount.

Smoffi

i stuck a hose in the hople and left the tap on for a few hours every day and blitzed it with wasp killer over the other holes in the evening... worked

Lotus-eater

jules1964 wrote: »

I so agree with you, I hate wasps with a passion!!!

Shame to hate something like that, they are being themselves, annoying sometimes yes, but do they really deserve hate?

jules1964 wrote: »

One thing I would say to the people who are mowing over the nests and maybe killing a few. When a wasp is killed, I saw this on wildlife programme. They leave a smell outside of the nest which the others can smell and could make them attack thinking there nest is being attacked. This could make them angry and then attack. Please be careful folks as people have been know to die from one wasp sting if they have a reaction, let alone by a large amount.

I think as myself and Davesnave both pointed out, neither of us mowed over the nest to try and kill a few wasps and neither of us advised others to do the same, if fact quite the opposite.
Don't do it basically, we got away with it because we both seem to know the rhythm of nature quite well, maybe that sounds a bit conceit, but I'm going to let it stand

tomsolomon

I'm not so bothered about them at the moment, they seem quite placid. But when they sink their teeth into my Bramleys at the end of the season they are gonna be like larger louts in Ibiza. Inebrated, disorientated and wanna stick it anything that moves.

Lotus-eater

tomsolomon wrote: »

I'm not so bothered about them at the moment, they seem quite placid. But when they sink their teeth into my Bramleys at the end of the season they are gonna be like larger louts in Ibiza. Inebrated, disorientated and wanna stick it anything that moves.

Yeah, but you are going to get that anyway, from other nests, yours won't make that much difference tbh.