Something in my soffit

My first Youtube video shows the wasp eggs ready to hatch, the larvae wriggling in situ.



It was at this point I decided it was time to take the nest down, which I did last night. I wore heavy gloves (ok, and a bee veil, a headlamp, protective glasses, heavy jeans, a heavy jacket, rubber boots) and started by putting a plastic bag around the nest, holding it in place at the point it joined the soffit. Immediately the queen emerged, mad as anything, and proceeded to bat her way around the bag, while I slipped the nest free with a spatula. I clipped the bag shut and popped it into the freezer.

Sad that I couldn't watch the construction a little longer, as it was in a perfect position for observation, but there's no reasoning with a wasp.



While I was at it I thought I'd better take the hornet nest down as well, since those eggs must also be getting close to hatching. I used the same procedure as with the wasp nest, and have a new appreciation for the expression "mad as a hornet". But better to have to cope with a 3 inch long nest with one angry queen than.. well, more than that.

My bee expert tells me that these hornets hunt wasps, and for that reason, the popular fake nests you hang to keep wasps away are modelled on the (bigger, rounder, longer) nest of this one, Dolichovespula maculata.