Wasp Nest Removal: What to Do When You Find a Nest
Benefit Pest Management provides wasp nest removal across Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and the Hunter, for European wasps, paper wasps and mud daubers. We take emergency jobs, and we do bees as well. Our head technician holds pest management technician licence 5083379, issued by the New South Wales EPA. How soon we can get there depends on where you are and the time of year, and October to March is our busiest stretch.
We get back to every enquiry within one business day.
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How wasp nest removal works
Wasps never nest out of the way. The nest turns up under the eaves above the back door, in the shrub beside the clothesline, under the outdoor furniture or the kids’ play equipment, or in a hole in the lawn where they play, and it keeps growing through the warm months. If it is somewhere you walk past every day, wanting it gone tonight is fair enough.
Getting rid of it safely starts with finding it. With paper wasps that’s easy, because their nests hang out in the open. European wasps are harder. Their nests are usually hidden in the ground, inside a wall or roof cavity or in an old tree stump, and often all you can see is a small hole with wasps flying in and out of it.
Once it is found, the nest can either be destroyed or moved somewhere safe. Spraying the wasps buzzing around the yard does nothing to the nest, which keeps producing more wasps as long as the queen is laying.
We spray the nest itself, directly, with a product made for the job, and the wasps it reaches die almost straight away. We don’t need to come back for a second visit.
European wasps, paper wasps and mud daubers
These three nest on and around houses, and some are a bigger worry than others.
European wasps are an introduced species. They were first found in Tasmania in 1959, and they are now well established around Sydney and in a number of inland New South Wales towns. About the size of a honey bee, they are bright yellow and black, with black antennae and black spots on the yellow bands. The nest is made of chewed wood fibre, and over several seasons an Australian nest can grow to more than 100,000 wasps.
Paper wasps are native and found right across Australia. Slimmer than a European wasp, a paper wasp has a narrow waist and a mostly dark body banded in yellow or orange. Theirs is the nest most people picture: a grey, upside-down cone of six-sided cells, made from chewed wood fibre and saliva and hung under the eaves, off a fence or beneath a branch. Colonies stay small, and away from the nest they are useful insects to have in the garden.
Mud daubers build with mud instead of paper, and tuck the nests into sheltered spots on houses and other buildings. Each cell gets one egg and several paralysed spiders, which the grub eats when it hatches. It sounds like a horror film. For the spiders, it is. If spiders are the bigger problem, our spider control page covers that.
A phone photo is usually enough for us to tell the three apart. Take it from well back and zoom in, rather than walking closer for a better angle. It keeps you a little safer.
Which ones to keep well away from
All three can sting. What sets them apart is how hard they defend the nest.
Stay furthest away from European wasps. They are more aggressive than bees and attack when the nest is disturbed, and each one can sting more than once without dying (Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network). A single nest can hold many thousands of them.
Sweet drinks draw them in as well. A wasp can crawl into an open can and sting the mouth or throat of whoever takes the next sip.
Paper wasps can deliver painful stings too, but they generally only go on the attack when someone gets close to the nest. Mud daubers can sting painfully, but they rarely attack.
Severe allergic reactions to stings are relatively uncommon, according to the Australian Museum. Anyone in the house who knows they react badly should still stay well clear of the nest until it has been treated.
Why you shouldn't do it yourself
Plenty of people try, and it is easy to see why. It is one nest by the door, and the hardware shop sells a can for it.
Using the can means getting close to the nest. Disturbance is what sets wasps off. The Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network warns that swatting or destroying a nest raises the risk of being stung.
Done properly, a nest is sprayed in the evening or after dark, when the whole colony is home and settled. Spray it in the middle of the day and the foragers come back to a dead nest, start a new one, and they’re angry when they do it. Whoever does it wears protective clothing and a veil. All of that is our job.
Emergency wasp nest removal
Some nests can’t sit there for a week: one over the front door, at the pool gate or across the only path to the clothesline. We do take emergency jobs, and we will tell you straight when we can get there.
Wasp season overlaps our busiest months. When we can be there depends on where you are, the size of the job and the time of year, and the wait runs longer in summer. You get a real date on the phone, and we get back to every enquiry within one business day.
If someone who has been stung has trouble breathing or a swollen tongue or throat, that is a job for an ambulance, not for us. Call Triple Zero (000) first.
Until the nest is treated:
Show the kids where it is, so they know to stay away from it
Keep food and drinks covered outside, open cans most of all
Keep the mower and the whipper snipper away from a nest in the ground. Running over it counts as disturbing it
When wasps are worst
Wasps build through the warm months. A paper wasp colony starts in spring. Its workers appear in late spring and early summer, and new queens and males arrive in late summer and early autumn. European wasp nests grow all summer and reach full size towards the end of it, and wasps are at their most troublesome in autumn.
The time to ring is when you first notice a nest, while it is still small. Ringing early also gets you in ahead of the summer rush.
Where we do this
We work from our base at Caves Beach across Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, the Hunter, Port Stephens and the Central Coast, with no call-out fee.
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FAQ
Your questions
How do I get rid of European wasps?
Find the nest and have it treated with an insecticide registered for wasps. Wasps fly straight back to the nest, so watching where they head from a safe distance can help you find it.
What keeps wasps away from the house?
Less food and water lying around. Wasps are drawn to sweet drinks, fruit, meat scraps, pet food and water, so covering food outside and keeping bins shut gives them less reason to stay. A pool, or flowers heavy with nectar, will bring more of them. The wasps hanging around the barbecue are there for the sausages, not the company.
Will the wasps come back next year?
Some European wasp nests in Australia survive the winter and carry on growing the next season, and paper wasps can move back into an old nest. Waiting for the cold to finish a nest off is a gamble. Treating it is what ends that colony.
Is a wasp nest an emergency?
It can be. A nest by a door, a gate or a play area is more pressing than one in a far corner that nobody goes near. It is even more pressing if someone in the house is allergic to stings, so tell us where the nest is and about the allergy when you ring.
What if the nest is in a park or on the footpath?
Ring the council that looks after the land before anyone goes near the nest. A nest on public land is generally the council’s to deal with, while one on your own property is yours to have treated.
What if they are bees, not wasps?
We do bees as well, but we’ll point you to a beekeeper first, to see whether the hive can be moved safely. If the hive can’t be moved safely, or moving it would mean knocking out bricks, we treat it. A photo will tell us which you have, and the bees section on our common pests page covers what to do in the meantime.
Next step
Leave the nest to us
Keep people and pets well away from the nest, and leave it exactly as it is.
A quote costs nothing, and neither does the advice.
