Fun with wasps

BillB

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A very interesting experience this week. Following our usual custom when we get up, I came downstairs while my wife was taking her shower. I was happily sitting at the computer, checking our emails and reading the online newspapers. When Jackie came out of the bathroom she found that the stairwell was full of wasps flying about and banging themselves against the window. She yelled for me so I did the obvious thing and opened the window wide to let the wasps fly out. We looked around to find where they were coming from and noticed a black mark on the ceiling. While I was trying to work out how it got there I saw a wasp emerge from the “black mark” and fly straight out the window, then another one came out and then another. I went down to the cellar, mixed up some Polyfilla and blocked the hole. The surface of the wall and ceiling began to give as I was doing the filling. An ominous sign, I thought. We had some breakfast and then saw that another hole had appeared and wasps were once more emerging in a steady stream. As long as we left the window open it was okay as the wasps flew straight out. I went down to the town hall and they told me that I should call the fire brigade (les pompiers) as they were the people who deal with wasp nests in Luxembourg.
I duly called them and they came around 9.30 in the evening. Such lateness is necessary as the wasps are all back in the nest by that time. There were two of them and I watched from the bottom of the stairs as the boss man gingerly explored the area where the holes were. He told me that he was going to seal the area by sticking tape over it, but as he started to press the tape down, the surface of the ceiling gave way inwards and a horde of angry wasps came hurtling out. The two firemen came rushing down the stairs, but I was ahead of them. I got stung on the stomach through my shirt, but it didn’t hurt too much, but one of the firemen was stung close to his eye and that seemed rather painful.
Once most of the wasps had left the stairwell for the great outdoors, the two firemen donned their specially protective suits, sprayed as much of the nest as they could, and then taped the hole up.
The boss man told me that he had never seen anything like it. They must have been there for quite a few years as the nest was very big. It seems that they had entered through a gap in the roof and then the nest had expanded between the roof and the inner ceiling over the years. Slowly, the wasps had eaten through the plaster until all that kept them inside was the paint on the ceiling, which was several coats thick. Once they had started finding their way through that there would have been no stopping them. The firemen told us that they would return the next night with more men and remove the nest.
For several hours after that we could hear the angry buzzing of thousands of wasps behind the ceiling, but even though they were sealed in we very carefully closed all the doors when we went to bed.
The next evening two emergency vehicles pulled up and 6 firemen got out. They suited up and went inside, while we stood outside in the garden. Our son and daughter-in-law turned up to offer moral support, and pretty soon several of our neighbours joined us. It was turning into quite a jolly party. Our daughter-in-law went to buy some beer for the firemen (they only drank it after they had finished their work). One of them went up on the roof to find the original entrance and exit and he sprayed inside before sealing it up. Inside the house, the nest got another good spraying, and then the firemen got out a heavy duty vacuum cleaner which they used to break up the nest and suck it away. After that they sealed it with thick cardboard and taped it all down again.
Afterwards, they stood in the front garden, taking off the heavy suits which had made them sweat, and drank a beer. The boss man told me that they couldn’t reach all the nest, but there were no live wasps left in it.
We contacted our insurance company but we aren’t covered for wasps. I should have known that whatever befalls us is never covered by the insurance. We contacted our Portuguese builder who came to have a look and assured us he could fill the hole and replaster the area. He came along yesterday morning and did just that. We now have to wait for a week to paint the newly plastered area and replace the wallpaper.
And a further idle thought – what is the point of wasps? I can see where bees fill a huge job in nature, and even see the necessity for vultures and jackals, but what purpose do wasps serve? Answers here, please.
 

viviennem

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Wasps are actually very useful - they do pollinate some things (ivy flowers, for one!) and they also eat a lot of garden pests. They eat live prey such as greenfly and small grubs, and are useful scavengers in the garden.

Their nests are really clever - the queen hibernates over the winter, and then makes a nest by chewing wood and similar materials and building a complex, papery nest out of the pulp, where she lays her eggs and raises the workers for that season. Then she lays more eggs while the workers tend to her and the eggs/grubs.

They are usually no trouble - how long have you had that nest without knowing they were there? It's only when they start eating fermenting fruit that they become belligerent and aggressive - just like humans :lol: .

Havng said all that - I'm allergic to wasp stings (though not to bee stings) and as far as I'm concerned, the only good wasp is a dead one! In the autumn I make a point of killing any queen I can find, when they are looking for hibernation sites. Ditto for the spring, when they're just waking up.

In your situation, I would have left home!

Viv 8)
 

raydavies

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Believe it, or not, you can now buy artificial wasp nests. You stuff them with plastic shopping bags and hang them somewhere you don't want wasps to appear - they do seem to stay away!

They utilise the principle that wasps won't approach another colony's nest and therefore give it a wide berth.

I'm using them in our patio area, come September I'll know just how effective they are.

Ray
 

lovinglife

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Wow Bill - what an adventure! - you were very brave to stay in the house - I wouldn't have slept there for the winning euro ticket! :lol:

Welcome back by the way - have missed your travel stories - read through them again the other day and enjoyed them just as much again :D
 

DazG

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I would have been out of the house the second I saw them.

On the way down to Weymouth a couple of weeks ago, a swarm of wasps rose from the grass verge and smacked into the windscreen of my car, there were loads of them, all windows were open and I am so thankfull that none of them got into the car, would have caused a serious accident if they did.

Glad you have managed to get rid of them!!
 

BillB

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Thanks for the explanation, Viviennem. Now I know that the nasty little stingers do serve some purpose. Fortunately, I’m not allergic as I’ve been stung many times over the years, the last time just last week. Oddly enough, I used to work with a Scot who had been climbing a tree when he was a boy and banged his head against a wasp nest he didn’t know was there. He was stung many, many times and was close to death in hospital for several days. The upside was that he was totally immune to wasp stings ever after that. I have seen him catch a wasp in his hand and then pull out the sting to prove to the sceptics that his story was true.
That’s a useful tip, Raydavies. If I ever get a nest in the trees in my garden, I’ll go shopping for one of those. One of the reasons (though not the main one) we left Spain was because it was virtually impossible to eat outside in the warm weather. If it was breakfast they would turn up for the marmalade and the butter, at lunchtime they would make a beeline for the olive oil and at dinner they would go for anything that had fat in it. And if we waited until dark to eat, the wasps would be all back in their nests but the mosquitos would be out, devouring us alive.
Lovinglife (what a great name, by the way, it’s exactly how I feel, too), we only stayed in the house because the ceiling was blocked off by very thick cardboard and another layer of tape on top of that. In addition, we had the doors closed, and the key in the keyhole so we felt pretty safe. And thank you for the kind words about my travel posts. Haven’t been away much this year, apart from Florida, but our Californian friends are coming over next month and we have rented a house in Provence for a fortnight together. I’ll put anything interesting in a post. And our 50th anniversary trip, planned and booked for October was cancelled by the travel company as there were not enough clients for it. We’ve booked instead to tour Japan in November (our anniversary is on 11 November), so I’m sure there’ll be something of interest there to post. And then, after swearing last Christmas that we’ll never go away again at that time of year (the roads were blocked with snow, you may recall), Claire Skyped us from California to say that she and Terry were flying with their California-based son and his family to Hawaii to spend Christmas with their Australia-based son and his family. Guess who’s going to take care of the house and the cat?
DazG, an odd coincidence – I was a passenger in a car in Spain a good few years ago when the car drove into a swarm of bees. Luckily the windows were closed and the air conditioning was on, but the exterior of the car was covered in them and we couldn’t shake them off even by exceeding the speed limit.
 

daisy1

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raydavies said:
Believe it, or not, you can now buy artificial wasp nests. You stuff them with plastic shopping bags and hang them somewhere you don't want wasps to appear - they do seem to stay away!

They utilise the principle that wasps won't approach another colony's nest and therefore give it a wide berth.

I'm using them in our patio area, come September I'll know just how effective they are.

Ray

Ray - any idea if you can buy them online? Is that where you got yours? I could use a few of them.
 

raydavies

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Ray - any idea if you can buy them online? Is that where you got yours? I could use a few of them.

Hi Daisy1, They are available on eBay, just do a search for "Waspinator".

They're quite cheap as well!

Ray
 

viviennem

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Mosquitos? - absolutely no point whatsoever, apart from feeding fish and killing humans! I react badly to their bites, too!

My dad kept honey-bees when I was a child - I don't react to their stings at all.

Bumblebees, unlike honey bees and wasps, are friendly, peace-loving creatures that will only sting as a last resort. On one dig, in the summer of 1975 (a very hot summer as well as '76) we had a bumblebees' nest underneath our table in the orchard for 6 weeks. As long as we kept the flight-path clear they never bothered us, not even if a chair-leg went down the hole, or we had to get a windfall out of it. They'd occasionally mosey over to look at what was going on, but they were never aggressive.

So please don't kill bumblebees! :D

Viv 8)
 

pianoman

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viviennem said:
Mosquitos? - absolutely no point whatsoever, apart from feeding fish and killing humans! ...
Thanks Viv :) as if the blood-letting isn't bad enough what's with their constant whining and stinging! If I recall correctly, malaria still accounts for more human deaths worldwide than any other single cause.

I also had some honey bee hives for a while... like bumblebees (known as "humblebees" in Darwin's time) they were also very peaceful unless they felt threatened. I found it almost meditative when working around them as you had to approach the hive in a relaxed frame of mind... there was no rushing them :)
 

viviennem

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Yes, Pianoman - and no-one else had the courage to disturb you! :D

Funny to think that something so small (mozzies) could be considered our only predator . . .

Viv 8)
 

IanD

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what is the point of wasps?
If you look closely at the tail end, you will see the point.

what is the point of mosquitoes?
There's the difference - examine the point of pain while it sucks your blood, & observe it's proboscis.

Or am I missing the point of your question?
 

josie38

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Billb, i know its no fun having wasps in the house. I am allergic to wasp stings so when we found one in our loft I paid the council to come and get rid of it for me. I couldn't sleep in the bedroom for days afterwards kept thinking i heard wasps still!!!!!! At least you got a party out of it!!!!!

Josie
 

BillB

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Last Saturday our Portuguese handyman came along, carefully peeled down the fibreglass wall covering, filled in the enormous hole, and then plastered the ceiling and wall. Yesterday he came back, painted the ceiling, pasted the wall covering back, pasted the dado back and touched up the paint. It's now back exactly as it was before the damned wasps started their rampage. I had visions of the whole ceiling having to be repainted, maybe even the stairwell walls into be bargain with a bill to match all the work. As it was he charged me €250. Sighs of relief all round.