The European wasp season is drawing to a close and it’s been another bad one for the Canberra region with reported nests well up on last year. If you have a nest on your property or know of any nests anywhere, then now is the last chance to get it treated as the queens numbering in their thousands have just begun leaving to hibernate ready to start new nest next spring.
Call the European wasp hotline on 6162 1914 for advice.
This link is also very informative. http://www.actbeekeepers.asn.au/information/european_wasp/european_wasp.htm
If you have been one of the many that has been affected this season what were your experiences?
Did you tackle them yourself, or use a pest control company, if so, how was the service, how much did you pay?
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Demosthenes said :
If its on private land it becomes the land owners responisibility. Is the nest in question on your land? The queens are leaving now as stated in the original post, I can guarantee that if this nest is not treated the whole neighbourhood will be infested next season, probably including you! If you want to contact me direct(I don’t advertise on RA so can’t provide details) I will fix it up for you.
Get rid of Liz and bring on the republic!
I called the so called hotline the other day and was told that unless I could prove the nest I have located a direction to (not on my property) was on public land then the government had more important arts statues to worry about and I would have to pay to have them removed or have a crack at it myself. I am hoping the cold weather will wipe them out instead.
Madman said :
Typical situation that, the wasps around the entrance are disorientated but will eventually contact the dust and die. Hope you didn’t pay over $100 for the service.
On the advice of the experts, last season I used a red torch a few hours after sunset, marched straight up the the nest opening and sprinkled ant powder in and around it.
2 nests. The first one worked 1st go, the second took 3 attempts – must have been the geometry of the opening, which was under some ivy.
The idea of the red torch is that they can’t see it, and therefore don’t fly at it and attack it. The ant powder is picked up as they walk in to the nest and distributed around in there.
Nah – I didn’t end up recording it – but it only took 1 min for the pest controller to spray.
Short clip of the angry Europeans fleeing their nest!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa1u0s0-9zo
I had a nest as I mentioned before – they had gotten in between a gap in the bricks and were nesting between the wall cavity and the brick wall.
I bought the wasp spray from bunnings twice…. I hit them once with it, and their swarm got smaller – so I hit them the next day and I thought I had gotten rid of them. 1 week later, they were bigger then ever….
So I got a pest controller in and they did there magic and haven’t had a problem since!
I got a cool vid of the pest controller doin his stuff – I will have to try find it at a decent time!
swamiOFswank said :
You may get away with that sort of practice early in the season, but right now they are very protective of their nest due to the queen production and are very agressive.
I bought some wasp killer at Bunnings for about $14 – sprays 3-4 metres too, but gave up on it. I had European Wasps nesting in my roof, so I watched where they were coming and going from, and every afternoon as they came flying home home, I just Morteined them – regular fly spray wiped them right out. As well as that, I sprayed Mortein surface spray all over the entry to the roof cavity on a daily basis.
Every morning I’d find a bunch of dead wasps on my verandah and together with the ones I sprayed as they were flying in, I killed about one hundred. Probably took me 2 weeks of daily wasp-homicide, but they either cleared out and moved somewhere else, or I got them all.
Interestingly over the next two summers there weren’t any more around my place.
Mortein works just fine.
kathysav said :
those would be papernest wasps, a whole different critter!
What is the spray called? Does it kill any old wasp or just european?
Had 3 nests at my place. I got a spray from the supermarket which kills them in seconds – and the stream goes for 3-4 metres, so you don’t have to get close. Wonderful stuff. Cost – $7-8.