Wasps are distinctive insects with the adult worker wasp having a characteristic black and yellow patterning on its main body. Wasps are colonial insects that live in social groups, and each adult works to build and sustain the nest. The common wasp is a species found throughout Britain and Northern Europe. These are social insects forming colonies within a nest and these nest can be found in various locations from loft spaces to holes in the ground, with nests usually growing to suit the size where the nest has been built e.g. in a loft space the nest can grow (if left untreated) to quite a large size. The fertilised queen wasp emerges from hibernation around mid to end-April where she will search for a suitable nest site. She forms the start of the nest with chewed bark and dried timber mixed with saliva; the initial ‘cell’ is about the size of a golf ball. She will lay between 10 and 20 eggs within the individual chambers feeding them on insects and other invertebrates. The first wave of adult workers (sterile females) take over the job of building the nest and feeding the eggs laid by the queen. Towards the end of wasp season (late summer) the developed nest can contain up to 10,000 wasps, during the latter part of the summer males and young queens emerge and mating occurs and the fertilised queens fly off and find a suitable over wintering site.

With the colder weather approaching the workers and few remaining males become increasingly sluggish and whilst feeding on over-ripe fruit they can appear to be tipsy in behaviour, this will lead to an aggressive behaviour towards humans who interfere with them in anyway. When the cold weather sets in it will kill off any remaining workers with only the fertilised queens surviving by hibernating then re-emerging the following spring. It is at the end of summer when wasps noticeably become a pest. wasp control can be easily treated by yourself using a number of products available in DIY stores and many online stores and the best time to treat your nest is just before dusk as the wasps will not be as active during this time.

Online stores can provide you with kits to treat the nest site; these kits usually consist of smoke generators, dust and an aerosol spray. The smoke generators are used to initially knock down a number of wasps that are around at that time, the dust and aerosol is used directly on the nest and will kill the nest off within a matter of hours. Other products are available such as the Waspbane trap, this trap is fairly new to the market and works exceptionally well. A major UK theme park had to deal with an average of six people per year with life threatening anaphylactic reactions. After installing the Waspbane traps, the theme park has seen up to a 99.3% reduction in the total number of stings. Want to know more regarding wasps, its biology and how to deal with a wasp problem