Wasp nest. Awkward place.

[frank horton]

I've also used spray grease if ur feeling cruel......
carb spray, brake cleaner and wd all work well......but gets a bit expensive....
for the easier nest positions we have a dedicated 1 gall rose sprayer with a strong solution of dish/w liquid......can be adjusted to squirt or spray...

did u know they breathe thru their skin/ bodies....not lungs....so all u gotta do is clog up the Traceae tubes.....they are microscopic.....
a very interesting subject Insects......

Also ex bee keeper, unless they get in the way or get too big a nest I leave em alone.....

Asiatic hornets, now thats another story.......

believe me they get bigger than that.....
quite common in SW France and u've got em in the channel islands now......
before I noticed they almost destroyed two off my hives.....unless it's a full frontal attack they hover just outside the hive entrance and take the bee's from the air....
I wanted to do a degree on flying insects but life got in the way.......grrrrr...
Tally Ho.....

 

[reb78]

If i didnt need to pull.down and rebuild the chimney they are nesting next to I wouldnt bother them to be honest but if I dont donit before winter when they all die, the ceiling in my sons room will.dissapear due to the leak. I also have a cracked chimney pot that needs replacing.

 

[droopsnoot]

I've recently had one in the wall cavity - they were going in at the corner of one of the windows. I had someone out to it, £50 to spray some stuff in and they were gone a few hours later. I had a go with spray but it just annoyed them two at a time.

 

[reb78]

£50 isnt too bad. I might give a local place a call

By the time I have been, bought stuff, faffed on a ladder, fallen/got stung, failed and then repeated with different stuff and failed/fallen/got stung some more i will probably have spent that.

 

[Anguz]

Done similar before with a length of plastic conduit, tip a bottle of wasp powder in it then stuff thei air line up the end

 

[pedrobedro]

Done similar before with a length of plastic conduit, tip a bottle of wasp powder in it then stuff the air line up the end

20 odd feet up a ladder might be a bit of a stretch though. I found that Nippon ant powder works on wasps and most other insects, just spray it round the entrance it sticks to brick surfaces and they track it into the nest.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

20 odd feet up a ladder might be a bit of a stretch though.

If it's up a ladder then I'd get the someone in....just not worth taking the risk.

I dislike ladders and I dislike wasps...so for me I'd be out at that point!

 

[reb78]

Its right at the apex

 

[Migmac]

Cymag was our go to for nests we couldn’t remove.

 

[jack-daniels]

I cobbled together a paraffin gun full of white ant/wasp powder, a portable compressor and 3m of 15mm copper pipe with 4m of smaller heating oil copper pipe cable tied to it.

Could blow as much white powder up the pipe as needed around the soffit/facia boards where the wasps were coming in and out. Clouds of powder and the roof turned white but it worked.

EDIT.

Yep, I wouldn't be going up a ladder attacking wasps there!

 

[not done it yet]

As above...most will die off over the winter if you can wait a few months.

All the workers and drones will peg. Only the mated(?) queens will successfully over-winter, tucked away in some secluded hiding place, emerging in early spring to start new colonies. The queens can easily survive sub-zero temperatures while in hibernation. They will not re-use the old nests, but may start one very close by.

If they were bees i would leave them alone.

A legal requirement - unless they are a nuisance due to their location. I really doubt whether that position would be regarded as a sufficient reason for destruction.

Destruction of a bee colony is a problem - persistent insecticides are not permissible because the nest may be robbed out by other bees - killing those colonies as well.

Most beekeepers would remove the colony - if practical - but likely not an option in your nest location. Wasps will generally build inside the building and bees will colonise an enclosed space - often the cavity of a wall, unfortunately.

Cymag was our go to for nests we couldn’t remove.

Yep, great for ground nests, but not so great using it aerially! Unfortunately, now a virtually banned substance. Damp cymag gives off cyanide gas. There was one case of a gamekeeper who opened his landrover cab door and was gassed. Luckily for him, he fell out of the vehicle and recovered. He was lucky.

Back in the 1960s, we walked the hedgerows around fields that were to be ploughed in the autumn (usually after the harvest). Wasp nests, ploughed out, were a real problem for the tractor driver of tractors without cabs!

Whenever I used cyanide, I had two flasks containing the antidote - one on each side, close to the work. The instruction was to mix the two and drink it - quickly - if an incident occurred.

 

[Migmac]

All the workers and drones will peg. Only the mated(?) queens will successfully over-winter, tucked away in some secluded hiding place, emerging in early spring to start new colonies. The queens can easily survive sub-zero temperatures while in hibernation. They will not re-use the old nests, but may start one very close by.



A legal requirement - unless they are a nuisance due to their location. I really doubt whether that position would be regarded as a sufficient reason for destruction.

Destruction of a bee colony is a problem - persistent insecticides are not permissible because the nest may be robbed out by other bees - killing those colonies as well.

Most beekeepers would remove the colony - if practical - but likely not an option in your nest location. Wasps will generally build inside the building and bees will colonise an enclosed space - often the cavity of a wall, unfortunately.





Yep, great for ground nests, but not so great using it aerially! Unfortunately, now a virtually banned substance. Damp cymag gives off cyanide gas. There was one case of a gamekeeper who opened his landrover cab door and was gassed. Luckily for him, he fell out of the vehicle and recovered. He was lucky.

Back in the 1960s, we walked the hedgerows around fields that were to be ploughed in the autumn (usually after the harvest). Wasp nests, ploughed out, were a real problem for the tractor driver of tractors without cabs!

Whenever I used cyanide, I had two flasks containing the antidote - one on each side, close to the work. The instruction was to mix the two and drink it - quickly - if an incident occurred.

reminds me of a time I went to the chemists to get the antidote. Accused me of being a drug user, you get a high from it

 

[dobbslc]

I've also used spray grease if ur feeling cruel......
carb spray, brake cleaner and wd all work well......but gets a bit expensive....
for the easier nest positions we have a dedicated 1 gall rose sprayer with a strong solution of dish/w liquid......can be adjusted to squirt or spray...

did u know they breathe thru their skin/ bodies....not lungs....so all u gotta do is clog up the Traceae tubes.....they are microscopic.....
a very interesting subject Insects......

Also ex bee keeper, unless they get in the way or get too big a nest I leave em alone.....

Asiatic hornets, now thats another story.......View attachment 414296 believe me they get bigger than that.....
quite common in SW France and u've got em in the channel islands now......
before I noticed they almost destroyed two off my hives.....unless it's a full frontal attack they hover just outside the hive entrance and take the bee's from the air....
I wanted to do a degree on flying insects but life got in the way.......grrrrr...
Tally Ho.....

That is an impressive beast!

I've just killed off a wasps nest that was near my son's bedroom window, they were coming out from under the roof tiles, I have a cobbled together pipe about 4 meters long with a u bend and a peglar ball valve on the bottom.
Fill in with Nissin wasp powder connect it to a compressor and gave them 3 blasts, they were gone the next day. Only 1 sting!

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Had a bee keeper on the allotment...every now and again they would swarm and it was chaos...but they generally they left humans alone.

One time they settled on a tree branch....I was amazed to watch the bee keeper calms cut the branch off (no gear on!) and relocate them. When I say settled on the branch....it was a ball of bees about 1-2 foot in diameter....quite impressive to watch.

 

[not done it yet]

reminds me of a time I went to the chemists to get the antidote. Accused me of being a drug user, you get a high from it

Which? Yours are obviously too modern for my experience with cyanide antidotes.

As I recall, one of the flasks was a fresh ferrous salt. Can't remember the other one. The added complication in my job was that the cyanide could have been made with high specific activity Carbon -14. Too long ago for me to remember - it was my first job (1967) and I only had that analysis come up maybe twice in the 2 1/4 years I was there. I can’t even remember whether the cyanide was radio-active or if I was using cyanide for analysing a Carbon-14 compound for purity/specific activity.

 

[not done it yet]

Had a bee keeper on the allotment...every now and again they would swarm and it was chaos...but they generally they left humans alone.

One time they settled on a tree branch....I was amazed to watch the bee keeper calms cut the branch off (no gear on!) and relocate them. When I say settled on the branch....it was a ball of bees about 1-2 foot in diameter....quite impressive to watch.

For anyone interested in beekeeping or bees in general:

When a swarming takes place, the bees that are leaving are all gorged with honey. Their aim is to use that food for as long as they remain as a cluster (before setting off for the new-found residence) and for making wax in that newly founded colony space (for the urgent task of getting the queen back into ‘lay’ (because it would be another three weeks for any new workers to emerge after laying had commenced).

a) they have no intention of attacking and b) the gorging partly prevents them curling their bodies to inflict a sting. I’ve done that sort of swarm trapping many times - once while being watched by about half the pupils in the school I was at.

Someone had come along to my classroom and took charge of my lesson when the swarm had settled in a privet bush near to an access door, so that I could sort out the obvious problem (for some of the pupils). My attempt at shaking the queen into a dustbin was unsuccessful and I eventually returned after the pupils had departed from classes when I cut the branch, popped it into a computer/printer sized box and carried it home with all the bees inside ( the swarm bees always cluster around the queen) on my shoulder (giving the box a little shake/jolt when passing other pedestrians - who were surprised/befuddled/startled by the ‘hum‘ from the box.

That particular colony turned out to be very calm and very productive. I used queen cells from the colony to build up quite a number of new colonies. I could reach in and pick up things from the brood box floor, with a bare arm, after removing a few frames without any fear of the bees attacking my arm.

 

[Kram]

Can you fill the roof void with wasp/fly killer spray from the hatch opening?

Or zap them..

 

[redlig]

Tried this last year and although it didn't clear them it gave me a great deal of satisfaction just listening to them hitting the baffle plate inside the receiving tank before dropping into the water. killed thousands but not all. Now waiting for this years batch. bit of fun.

 

[gaz1]

A legal requirement - unless they are a nuisance due to their location. I really doubt whether that position would be regarded as a sufficient reason for destruction.

Destruction of a bee colony is a problem - persistent insecticides are not permissible because the nest may be robbed out by other bees - killing those colonies as well.

Most beekeepers would remove the colony - if practical - but likely not an option in your nest location. Wasps will generally build inside the building and bees will colonise an enclosed space - often the cavity of a wall, unfortunately.

whilst its a legal requirement its also highly 2 faced when they are using pesticides

when we have crop sprayers, spraying pesticide that kills them.

uk has been allowed to start to use the spray again that kills them.

The Government has again put bees at risk by permitting the use of the banned pesticide thiamethoxam on sugar beet in England in 2022. In making the decision ministers went against the explicit advice of their own scientific advisors not to allow the pesticide to be used.

so for corporate advantages its spray away lets kill them and other animals for the casual user its illegal

 

[reb78]

Local pest control chap has been out and sprayed load of dust into the nest. He said they were German wasps and could be quite nasty. £90 but it saved me a lot of hassle and potential injury.