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William and his mates seem to be moving into the soffit a couple of meters from my back door.
Given how hard it is for wildlife at the moment I don’t want to kill them but equally I’d rather they weren’t quite so close.
So what to do?
I assume no way to move them on and even if I do they are unlikely to find a new home.
Maybe he’s related to Jasper
William the Wasp would be my guess?!
Nah.. it’s clearly Prince William he’s referring too… my advice, rent the spare room to Harry.
I’d rather they weren’t quite so close.
[s]Kill[/s] Scare it with fire.
Yup seems to be a lot of wasp traffic in a small hole in the soffit.
What benefits do wasps bring? Serious question.
Apparently they are very territorial. You can buy fake wasp nests and hang them up. That encourages real wasps to go elsewhere. Never tried it though
Depends what you think the risk is of breaking into the interior of the house. Plus the nuisance of them being so near to a door. Does their flight path take them that way and does it get a lot of use? If they aren't troubling you, then no reason not to leave them alone.
What benefits do wasps bring? Serious question
What benefits do you bring? Serious question 🤔🤣
What benefits do wasps bring? Serious question.
They also pollinate plants as bees do.
They eat a lot of bugs and other things.
Like all native species they have their place as a cog in the eco system.
Ignore them and they will ignore you.
They can get a bit more angry towards the end of the season.
Paint over the welcoming mural by your back door.
👏
William? At least it isn’t Henry
I’m rather surprised that they’re setting up a nest now, it’s a little late in the season I’d have thought. Sure they haven’t been there all along and you’ve not noticed them? So long as they’re not coming into the house, I’d let them be.
CZ good question - They seem to fly up and off over the boundary hedge so May have been coming and going for a while - I’ve just not noticed.
I’ll leave them to it.
Leave them be if you can, if they try to sting you, nuke 'em. Once they start attacking, they always seem to be on the offensive in my experience.
They can get a bit more angry towards the end of the season
They usually get pissed on fermenting fruit. I just wish they could be happy drunks.
Some of them may be, you are just seeing the bad apples
Leave them alone and they'll be gone in a few months and not come back.
Wasps help make better beer so leave them be.
Yup seems to be a lot of wasp traffic in a small hole in the soffit.
Apparently they are very territorial. You can buy fake wasp nests and hang them up. That encourages real wasps to go elsewhere. Never tried it though
Honey bees can arrive at a new nest site as a swarm. With wasps a queen arrives and starts building a nest and having young who continue to build the nest as the colony grows - they don't just arrive en masse. Once you are seeing traffic the nest is already there and has been since the start of the season - they won't be encourage to just move the colony elsewhere.
I think just let time pass- if they are a source of nuisance then deal with it but wasps have got better things to do than hang around the nest usually. Their patch off operation where they are out foraging and bringing food back from is about a square kilometre so apart from near the entrance you're not really going to encounter more wasps day to day if the nest is in your soffit or in someones shed a few streets away.
(bees have a bigger range, something like 20 Square kilometres - for 10 years I had 8 bee hives 50 yards from my front door - so 10s of 10000s of bees - never had a bee in the house in all that time and didnt really notice any in our garden)
You can possibly cause more nuisance by getting rid of the nest. I discovered a wasps nest in my workshop amongst some insulation batts by unwittingly picking the insulation up and tearing the nest in half. That was a suddenly exciting 4am van loading session!. With no nest there was then a population of wasps with nothing to do and nowhere to go. So having not even noticed the nest or the wasps before hand there just seemed to be wasps everywhere of weeks afterwards becuase instead of ranging about foraging they were just hanging around bored.
Coincidentally I listened to this last night... https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001np29
For anyone wondering about what bees and wasps get up to that will get you started.