Learning about wasps

As told by a very nice man from a famous pest control service

if you're in a semi rural area, don't use wood chip in your garden because the little blighters are attracted to it, chew it up to make a nest and then strip any trees of plant material to further make their nests.

There are scout wasps which forage and then travel up to a mile to take stuff back to their nest
When you have about 50 of those in your front garden (as we did) you don't have a nest, but they are feeding in your garden.

Nests can contain from 800 upwards of wasps and can grow from the size of an egg to the size of a football (common) to much much larger.

And worst of all they can still sting you even when they're dead - for months afterwards!

We'll be hoovering up the dead ones then - and replacing the chipped bark with slate in the winter

Apparently wasps don't like the smell of mint or cloves, so some new plants will be arriving

No more will they treat my garden like the local McDonalds !

Well, funny you should mention wasps nest....There is one opposite my front door. It's in the bushes at the back of the property that backs onto my front. I have rang the council and they said Yea, they will get rid of it for £75 . so I said but it's not on my land and it's not on my neighbours land either, it's on the council land which is maintained by them...so the lady on the phone gets out her map and says, That area is maintained by your housing assc. So I ring them....They said they would look into it...That was 3 weeks ago!!

Thing is there are children playing out there, and my son's bus drops him off right next to that bush, and as he is in a wheelchair and tends to fling his arms about I'm worried that he might get stung. I'm allergic to wasp stings so what do I do?

I have rang to housing asc again this morning and they said that they need a job ticket from the council, but the council are saying its not their responsibility.

What next?

Elaine xx

Our local authority don't deal with wasps full stop. Wherever they come, whoever is affected deals with them.
I had Rentokil in- they charged £79.Can't praise their service highly enough.
I phoned 9.15, they were here by 1.15.
If it had been a nest, they would have powder coated it and would have come back for a second visit f.o.c. 4 days later if there was still activity.
That's because sometimes scout wasps take 2 days to return.

Couldn't all the neighbours club together and get them in?

Thats interesting reading we have a lot of wasps hanging around at the moment.

We had a wasps nest right outside our back door last year. We let them be Ollie did get stung investigating one on the ground after that he stayed away so I was a bit worried trouble is we have the nests in the ground on the field outside our house too and he has had his nose in there too before.

The Grandchildren were fine we explained to them not too touch them and eventually they died off and we sealed the nest up. We have a quite a few hanging around at the moment but no nests around here that I know of.

Typical reaction of the Councils and Housing Associations take your rent from you but not prepared to sort your problems out. Hope it gets resolved for you soon.

Lol this so reminds me of when I was a teen and insulating the loft for my Mum as you could get grants to top up your insulation. I was in the attic and there was a long tunnel in the loft, about 3 ft wide with a sloping side where it went over the porch. It was about 20ft long. So I had to cut 3ft pieces of insulations and carry them on my hands and knees on the rafters to the end of the tunnel, piece by piece.

I did the first one and was crawling along, insulation in one hand, torch in the other when my torchlight suddenly settled on the biggest wasp'd nest I had ever seen!!!: shock: Twice the size of a football!!!!!

I went cold, and slowly, VERY slowly crawled backwards trying not to put my knees through the ceiling lol. I went downstairs shaking and told my Mum. 'Oh', she said, 'I forgot to tell you about that. It's an old one that was dealt with years ago but it has to be left there or the wasps may come back and build another one!'

Can't remember if I was wearing brown trousers, but I was after!

Interesting info about the bark chip though Pat, will remember that one.

Us Mums forgetting to tell you these things.

HAHAHA!
I would try and get your wasp nest sorted before September though... in the autumn they start looking for somewhere to hibernate, are drowsy with the colder weather, often wander indoors through open windows and are much more likely to sting cos their liddle brains are all befuddled. I guess it doesn't take much to befuddle a wasp!

eugh hate wasps!!


can you not just stick some pollyfila in the opening so they cant get in or out

[QUOTE=MissE;1749527]Our local authority don't deal with wasps full stop. Wherever they come, whoever is affected deals with them.
I had Rentokil in- they charged £79.Can't praise their service highly enough.
I phoned 9.15, they were here by 1.15.
If it had been a nest, they would have powder coated it and would have come back for a second visit f.o.c. 4 days later if there was still activity.
That's because sometimes scout wasps take 2 days to return.

Couldn't all the neighbours club together and get them in?[/QUOTE]

Yea, but in all honesty why should we, it is housing asc land and I pay enough rent, so it should be their responsibility surely
x

Yea too true, they would be knocking on my door if I din't pay the rent quick enough...Might get in touch with my MP,

elaine x