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bydesignprez

Wasp nest - Winter removal

bydesignprez
21 years ago

This could be a disaster, but we noticed a huge wasp's nest in a bush and we want to get rid of it. Being a kind soul (really!!), I left the wasps to do their business during this fall but at freeze up (we're on the Great Canadian prairies) I would assume that the wasps are frozen solid and I can safely dipose of the nest then. Is that correct?

As a curious person, how do wasps survive the winter to restart in the spring if they are all frozen and dead? Mosquitos I know, wasps are a bit of a mystery though.

Thanks

Comments (22)

  • bydesignprez
    Original Author
    21 years ago

    Thanks for the quick answer....I look forward to the first good frost then.

  • saucydog
    21 years ago

    Wait until temps are consistently cool day and night or you'll be in trouble. They become drowsy when it's cool, but a warm day will bring them out.

    If it were me, I'd wait until a really cold day.

    I thought it was funny that you said they were in a shrub. Are you sure they're wasps and not hornets?

    Saucy

  • bydesignprez
    Original Author
    21 years ago

    Sadly, the nest is adjacent to the pool and is in a tree/bush where the kids often throw rather large pool toys. The risk of a disaster is just too great. As love honey, I wish I could leave the nest alone but we are being swarmed with the creatures as it is.

    I heard today that wasps are attracted to yellow.

  • Brian_Hall
    21 years ago

    Bydesignprez,

    Since it appears to be a hazzard, you really should remove the nest now.

    Wasps are attracted to anything that looks/smells like food (insects, rotting fruit, your dinner, etc.).

    BTW, wasps do not make honey, only honey bees make honey. Many/most wasps eat other insects and don't even bother with nectar. What little nectar they do eat is consumed (instead of processed, like the honey bee).

    Brian

  • ohforpetesake
    21 years ago

    And FYI they do sting for no reason! I got stung a week or so ago after one was buzzing merrily around the ladder I was on, and I naively thought if I mind my business, it will do likewise. Then I felt this buzzing in my bellybutton which was closely followed by searing pain. People can be allergic to those stings and even if they aren't multiple stings could be fatal. Destroy them now and don't look back. If you wait until late in evening when it's cooler and they are hardly moving, it shouldn't be a problem. You can spray the living daylights out of it, or make Jiffy Pop out of them :)(I would do option one- a noisy death is really obnoxious, and it's the main reason I will never host my own crab feast EVER again!) I like to be at one with nature as much as the next guy or gal, but I draw the line at any location where me or mine can get hurt. Pollenate anywhere you want, but make your home somewhere else or it's WAR.

  • Brian_Hall
    21 years ago

    I'm with you ohforpetesake. I'm one of those "allergic" folks. Luckily for me, I'm not allergic to the point of requiring shots or medical attention (unless I get stung on the neck). I swell up pretty big, but it takes a couple days to reach "full swollen". The steriods and Bennadryl do nothing for me. I stay swollen for about 3 weeks. 3 years ago my son (then 2) stood on top of the exit of an underground wasp nest. They swarmed. I was working outside about 6ft. from him when I heard him scream. I had never moved so fast in my life. I had him across the street in about 5 seconds and was feverishly removing wasps from his body. Luckily for me I had heavy leather gloves on. I still got stung once on my wrist. My son had been stung in 7 locations, possibly multiple times in each location. 3 days later you could hardly find the places where he had been stung. I was just reaching my full size and couldn't bend my wrist, type, or make a fist. That was the first time that my wife had seen me get stung. Prior to that she didn't believe me when I told her how my body reacted to bee stings. She insisted that I take medications (including the shot) even though I told her they would not help. 3 weeks later (right on schedule) I was doing much better. Now she believes me :o).

    Brian

    So, if it was me, kill 'em!

  • beanmomma
    21 years ago

    Obviously they are in a location where Bydesignprez does not want them. Others have physical reactions, children and pets. These are valid reasons for not wanting them near your house.

    I just wasn't sure if people only had an impression of all wasps as 'bad' and to be eradicated and killed on sight. Believe me I've done in my share of yellow jackets. I 'discovered' the first nest right before we settled on our house. We were walking around the yard and I bent to pull some weeds from a rug juniper. You know it's hard to do all that signing at closing when your fingers won't bend.:^)

    Silly me, after we owned the place and I had sprayed and filled in the hole, I proceeding to weed the other side of this particular flower mound a week later. 'Found' the other yellow jacket hole. You know it hard to unpack moving boxes when your fingers won't bend.

    I've just never been stung by anything other than a yellow jacket (Dam* yellow jackets will sting you if you look at them) unless I swatted, or stepped on it. But that's just anecdotal. Obviously bees, wasps and hornets sting and can be dangerous...so you do what you have to do.

  • Schnauzers
    21 years ago

    Some hornets are beneficial. Some additional reading may help sort things out.

    Here is a link that might be useful: WV University website on Wasps and Hornets

  • countryboymo
    14 years ago

    I don't care about mud daubers... the version that builds mud tube nests or mud clump type nests unless they build in an unsightly location on the house. They have the ability to sting but mainly only use it to paralyze their prey 'spiders mainly' and take back to the nest for the young.

    Paper wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, bumblebees,carpenter bees are a whole different ballgame. I will kill any that hang around my yard very long. I know they are beneficial in many ways... so are skunks but I wouldn't want one living under my deck or around my house either.

    I had a friend when I was younger that liked to anger a nest and then ward them off with a racketball racket as they tried to sting him....he wasn't all there. I have learned that one easy way to get them is early in the morning when they are all settled in and slow movers to suck them off the nest with a shop vac and give a couple squirts of bug spray or wasp killer in the hose and shove the suction hose in the inlet port so none can go anywhere and shut it off for an hour or so. I did this at a location that I was worried the wasp killer might leave a stain on the house.

    I do not recommend the racketball or tennis racket technique... if you pay much attention... the holes in the racket are big enough for a wasp to make it through.

    I would recommend borrowing the neighbors shop vac one evening and sucking up a nest or two and shoving the vac hose in the inlet port and swiftly return it to the neighbors garage and go have a beer. Oh yeah and skip the wasp spray part... they aren't in your house or yard anymore, it don't matter.

  • golddust
    14 years ago

    We found this during a bathroom renovation. It was inside our walls! Yikes!

  • kevin45
    14 years ago

    Golddust...that is a yellow jacket nest. Garbage bees. The ones you see swarm garbage cans and getting into pop and beer cans in the summer. And they are aggressive if disturbed. That nest looks like it had been abandoned but you want to caulk any areas that they may have been getting in there from outside.

    As far as the OP and the wasp. Just take the thing out of there and destroy it. Why take the chance of you or some of the kids getting stung because you "are a kind soul" Think of other people. Those wasp really wouldn't care if they put someone into anaphylactic shock.

  • cataway
    14 years ago

    Do not destroy the nest, leave it where it is, wasps are territorial and will not build in the area if they think there are wasps already there. this nest is now abandoned and will not be used again. Many garden centers now sell fake wasp nests to discourage any new nest building.

  • linda_sims4_yahoo_com
    13 years ago

    I always see them first in my den where the fireplace is & believe that's where they are entering. Is there some type of bomb that I can place in the fireplace to kill them?

  • brendalynnsoer_shaw_ca
    13 years ago

    we`ve had contractors do some sofit & fascia this past week..unfortunately we covered up ( and sprayed foam ) into a wasps nest burrowed deep into the eaves of the house..thinkin that that would fix the problem...well these little guys are still active and are now trying to get out but since we blocked their entrance they are coming inside the house..twice we have woken up to a least a couple dozen swarming around inside the kitchen...inside !!!!!.. like being at an exorisim.....we just can`t figure out exactly where they are getting in....

    we have opened up the hole outside to give them a way out...but there could be thousands up there..what should we do ????????????????

  • lbwood2009_hotmail_com
    13 years ago

    I HAVE RED WASP IN MY EAVES, THE OVER HANG AROUND THE ROOF. HAVE HAD THESE WASP FOR YEARS,I HAVE BEEN PLANNING ON REPLACING THE UNDER SIDE OF THE EAVES,BUT TO MANY WASP. I BOUGHT 9 CANS OF THE ROOM FOGGERS THAT KILLS WASP,THIS MORNING IT WAS 40 DEGREES OUT SIDE,SO I GOT MY CORDLESS DRILL WITH A 3/4 INCH BIT DRILLED NUMEROUS HOLES IN THE EAVES,TAPED THE FOGGERS TO A BROOM HANDEL,AND STUCK THE NOZEL IN THE HOLES,I WAS SURPRISED TO NOT SEE ANY WASP TRYING TO GET OUT. I"LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR A WARM DAY TO SEE IF THEY DIED.IF ANYONE HAS TRIED THIS LET ME KNOW THE OUT COME. POSTED 3/25/2011 OKLAHOMA CITY.

  • lazypup
    12 years ago

    I find the claim that wasps are territorial and will not build a nest near another nest very difficult to believe. In my garage on one 2x4 about 8ft long there is five paper wasp nests and they all seem to get along just fine.

    We also found three active nests in the twine box on our hay bailer. (For those who don't know, the twine box is a metal cannister about the size of a laundry hamper that holds the bales of bailer twine).

    It was also stated that honey bee's are the only bee's that make honey, but that is not true. Bumble bee's also make a form of honey, but they do not make a honey comb. Instead they put the honey in individual cells that look somewhat like out medical capsules. As a kid my brother and I tore a bumble bee nest apart and we located some of their honey cells, which we opened and examined the honey, then we got brave and actually tasted it. That is one mistake I can assure you I will never repeat. Ingesting just a couple drops of the bumble bee honey will make sicker that you have ever been before, and within a few hours you will become very acquainted with the toilet...LOL

  • Katy Frisbie
    8 years ago

    hey I have a couple of wasp nest in a wall of ivy growing on the side of my house and my boyfriend and I want to tear down the ivy wall because its such a hazzard to the house but we cant because of all the wasp nest in the ivy so what would you suggest doing, we want to wait till its cold so we can get them all adn they wont sting us so how cold does it have to be to kill the wasp nest so they wont sting us or bother us

  • Elizabeth Proctor
    8 years ago

    brendalynnsoer_shaw_ca, I have the exact same problem. There is a small bit of stucco broken away where the eavestrough (gutter) attaches to the side of the house. The wasps access their nest via that hole in the exterior wall. I imagine the nest is in the soffit. Somehow from there they can get into the bedroom below the soffit. I had the window company come out to see if they were getting in through the window, but the serviceman checked and said no. There is expandable foam all around the window so no wee chinks or holes for them to get in. For the life of me I can't figure out how they're getting in. It is the last week of October here in Edmonton, Alberta and it's getting pretty chilly out at night. We've had a couple of good hard frosts lately, but that doesn't seem to be impeding the wasps' access to the bedroom. I'm afraid the queen will overwinter in the nest. Given the heat that comes off from the house they may not die due to the cold. They may just become dormant. I dunno! I was going to get the hole closed off but now I'm afraid to, considering what you went through. What to do? What to do???

  • Erin Kennedy
    2 years ago
    last modified: 2 years ago

    I have a nest in my van driver door advice to remove it?


  • HU-508577425
    8 months ago

    I just fo out todtoday that we have some kind of bees nest in the ground one and a half feet from my mailbox and my front porch . i don know what kikind of bees t are but i saw about 12 go in and out of the ground . can i wa until winter to try and step on the spot they came out of and poor white vineger on the ground ? Do they come out in the winter and is it safe to do that ? By the way im petrefied of bees . Will that solve my problem ? Thank you 😊

  • Sue Brown
    8 months ago

    I almost died from these. Was in the ambulance, all hooked up with life support. I heard the paramedic say he couldn’t find a pulse. I love nature but keep these away from people