WASPS
Do I have a Wasp Nest ?
You will see wasps flying in and out of one particular place with a direct flight pattern to and from the entrance this maybe within a hedge, bank or under the house fascia.
If this is the case we can carry out a wasp nest treatment to kill the wasp nest.
If you see them flying around your chimney there is 99.9% chance that they are honey bees.
What do I do about the Wasp Nest?
Life Cycle of the Wasp and Wasp Nest.
Wasps only over-winter as Queens, at the beginning of spring they emerge from the place they have spent the winter and find a suitable place to build a nest. Different wasps make nests in different places some in the ground while others prefer hedges.
She starts by building a small nest of wood paper, which is a mixture of wood and saliva, this nest starts with about 12 hexagonal cells in which she lays an egg in each. She raises these eggs herself until they emerge as workers (Sterile females).
These workers then take over the maintenance and expansion of the nest whilst the queen effectively becomes an egg factory, the colony then undergoes a rapid growth phase.
The peak of the nest comes in September, when there can be between five and ten thousand workers in a nest. At this time fertile males and females will be laid, as these hatch and mate the females will become next years queens whilst all the workers and males will die off over the weeks to come. During this stage when the workers have no purpose they become more aggressive. Old nests are never reused.