In article , sacha
writes
in article , Grahame Fendle at
wrote on 25/11/02 11:24 am:

"Peter Crosland" wrote:

The wasps will be long dead by this time of year.

Oh dear. How wrong can you be?

I listened to this advice from someone else some months ago. I wish I never
had, for it had almost tragic consequences.

I must agree with this. I think that when someone makes that comment, they
should add the rider "depending where you live". In the milder parts of
Britain, my experience is that they most definitely do NOT die off in
winter.

In New Zealand, wasp nests have become a serious problem in the milder
areas. North of Auckland there have been examples of active nests
persisting for several seasons and becoming huge - literally metres
across.

In Bedfordshire I find they are not too difficult to deal with. If you
need to kill one off it is easy to wait until nightfall and then use
powdered insecticide on the insects route to and from the nest. They
take it in with them next day, and a couple of days usually sees the
nests demise.

I have found though that usually it is best to leave them alone. They
are good for pest control (aphids etc) and I have also noticed that
wasps from a nest in our roof tend not to bother us, but go further
afield and therefore grant us some degree of immunity. I speak as
someone who has something of a phobia of wasps, but has learned to live
with them. We get a nest pretty much every year somewhere in our roof,
but for several years have ignored them. Until this last summer that is,
when during some decorating I managed to poke a screwdriver through the
ceiling, straight into a nest which I'd forgotten about. That was
exciting because when I withdrew the screwdriver they came out like a
fire hose, but I still managed to avoid being stung (though the room was
unusable for 48 hrs), and applied the above remedy.

Hornets are the things to beware of. Trouble on an altogether different
scale.
--
Jim A