Fed up with wasps ruining your picnic? Track down their nest

A LATE summer invasion of wasps is destroying peaceful picnics and quiet pints in the local pub garden – while also creating problems at home.

Wasps live in a nest with an egg-laying queen and all those pesky insects flying around after your jam sandwiches are workers who have gone out foraging for food. Wasps make nests in attic spaces and under eaves as well as digging burrows in the ground – and will fly up to two miles to buzz around your ears.

If you want to eradicate them there is no use swatting the odd invader. You must find the nest, which requires professional detective work.

Robert Maples, of TJ Pest Control in Takeley, Hertfordshire, says: ‘Unless you have an expert eye, finding where the wasps are coming from is a job for a detective who can track their hard-to-follow flights. Unfortunately, many people only find wasps in their roof when they go up to their attic and once inside hear the sound of buzzing – this can prove a dangerous time.

‘Do not just swat away as a single dying wasp releases a pheromone that alerts others. It is much better to open the attic hatch, turn the light on, leave and then close the hatch. After a few minutes return and look for any wasps by the light. It is nearly always better to call in an expert than endanger yourself.’

Maples says it is worth paying £50 for a professional to find and destroy a nest of 3,000 wasps. A can of spray or wasp powder may cost £5 but in confined spaces it exposes you to attacks.

An average of four people a year die from wasp, hornet or bee stings – usually because they are allergic to the sting.

Details of professional pest controllers can be obtained from the National Pest Technicians Association or the British Pest Control Association.