Wasp nest advice

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I’ve noticed wasps swarming around the back
of our house. There is an old disused air vent which had been blocked off, but must have come loose. So the wasps are going inside the old vent through a small gap. There is no way for them to get inside the house, there is a new wall on the inside. So it’s just a hole in the outside wall. I hope that makes sense!

Anyway, DH wants to leave it. We live in a cold part of the country and the wasps will die soon. It’s in an area inaccessible to our DC (100%). However our two cats do go there.

I don’t know anything about wasps and their nests. Is DH right? We should leave them to it because they will die soon? Or will we have lots of wasps emerging in spring? Will it damage the house?

The queen will hibernate, so yes, they will be back in spring. I suggest getting an exterminator in to deal with it. Ours comes out the same day. Cost isn’t high, and the wasps are dead within the hour.

They'll come back. I think cost is approximately between 50 and 100 depending where you live.

I've been stung recently (wasp nest in similar thing to what you've described) and it was surprisingly painful and became infected.

They will die soon, that's right. So you can leave them. But old wasps nests tend to attract flies...lots and lots of flies, if they haven't been poisoned. You could just wait and see what happens and if you get flies, spray them yourselves.

Nest will die in about October time, I paid the council to get rid of my wasps nest, they seemed a little reluctant as it was September said nest would soon die off, but I had very young baby and a toddler at the time so I was happy to pay. Speak to the council pest control department for a price.

It costs for us 25 quid usually per nest, but there is one guy who charges 50. And the nest doesn’t totally die off, the pregnant queen hibernates, and then it comes back in the spring. So no activity over autumn winter but absolutely it’s coming back next year. As said, I’d deal with it.

The stuff you buy in shops is too weak now. Especially if in a wall. I bought some super strong stuff as I had one in a wall this year, and it had a long nozzle to go down, made no difference and I needed the professional guy to come out. He put his suit on, puffed the powder down there and that was it, gone that day.

Also ask in your local face book page for recommendations.

I'd get post control in anyway, because otherwise they will be back next year. We had a nest in our porch once and they destroyed the porch roof, which we had to have rebuilt. A neighbour has had a bedroom ceiling collapse due to a wasps nest too. Good job nobody was in bed underneath when it all came down, thousands of wasps included! Your local council can send someone out, and they are usually competitive price-wise.

Wasps make their nests with chewed-up wood, and they will chomp their way through whatever wood they can find, and cause structural damage in the process.

@fiddlesticksandotherwords that sounds terrifying!!

Looks like we better get it sorted. Now I need to talk DH into it. He’s absolutely certain that the wasps will die soon and we don’t need to do
anything. Money is tight atm and it is difficult to persuade him to open his wallet anyway!

I'd always understood that wasps don't return to the same nest the following season, so I'm with your DH on this, leave them alone and they'll be gone soon enough

Wasps won’t go back to the nest next year and they will die off soon. The queens will be out soon looking to hibernate. Are you sure they aren’t bees?

We have one just outside our front door, but after doing some research we’ve decided to leave it until the autumn. As far as I understand it the social structure of the nest dissolves into anarchy and chaos in the autumn and the wasps leave it. If it’s a particularly good nest then new wasps might return next year.
I’m planning on waiting until winter and then smashing it up/removing it, whilst wearing protective clothing, so that we don’t have a reoccurrence next year.
Ours is on the ground.

They will all be dead in a few weeks, and they dont return to the same nest next year.
The only ones to survive will be the young queens who leave the nest to hibernate through the winter. You can sometimes find a hibernating queen under a roof tile or behind some loose tree bark.

In the spring the queens emerge and look for a new nest site. Throughout the Spring and Summer wasps are really good for the garden as they collect bugs to feed to the grubs in the nest, normally they are not a nuisance until all the grubs have pupated, that's when they start going after sweet things like your picnic.

I leave any nests in my garden unless they are too close for comfort (like one directly above the door in the porch)

Lots of info here: www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/other-garden-wildlife/insects-and-other-invertebrates/bees-wasps-ants/wasp/

A friend of mine works in a building which is always plagued by wasps every year. They definitely do come back if not dealt with. They've always been annoying but not unmanageable, until this year she ended up getting stung multiple times on her head and her whole face swelled up, then they finally had to sort it out.

Just ignore, they'll be gone soon. And wasps don't return to the same nest, the queen will leave the old nest, hibernate, and start a colony elsewhere.

Leave it. Wasps don't return to old nests but they may build a new nest if the space is still suitable. Save your money now and use it to get someone to seal the air vent once the nest is dead. Even daft cats (I've had several) are generally smart enough not to interfere with a wasps' nest.

Wait till they all die in a few weeks. Knock the old nest down and seal up the vent before next spring.