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from "Flummoxed" contains these words:

I know this topic has come up before, but we have a massive wasps nest
in the loft. I realised it was there in the summer, but I thought I'd
wait till winter to get rid of it, then try to seal up the holes where
they get in, following previous advice in this group.

I gather that by December the wasps would normally be dead, but because
of the mild weather we had (apart from the recent cold snap) they may
still be alive. I still find the odd drowsy looking wasp around. Can
anyone tell me when would be teh best time to remove it, when I can be
sure they're dead? I don't want to risk doing it too soon, and disturb
them (not to mention getting stung!), but if I leave it till too late
next year, the queen wasp might be active building a new nest - any
idea when they start doing that (I guess it depends on the weather)?

The best way to deal with the nest is to put a dustbin bag over it and
break it off into it.

Depending on where you are, there may or may not be wasps still alive -
they were certainly active on my ivy flowers a short while ago.

The drowsy ones you find around may be young queens, a bit slow finding
somewhere to hibernate. The old queen will die along with the workers,
and the new queens will set up home somewhere else - in the spring I'd
check the loft for little paper lampshades the shape of a fritillary.
(Snakeshead lily, not the butterfly!)

Is there a time when they would be guaranteed to be dead, e.g. Jan or
Feb?

Depends on how warm your loft is I suppose. The dustbin bag method you
can do more-or-less any time - I've done it in the middle of summer -
but at night, and only after casing the job for a while...

--
Rusty
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