As predicted the cold winter appears to have kept queen wasps in a deeper, longer hibernation to which they emerged to a warm (perfect) spring.

I believe that many weaker queen wasps would have normally died in less than perfect years, and this accounts for the many smaller nests that are starting to appear now (mid July). These queens have managed to survive and rear some brood which have managed to continue the nests into summer.

Personally it has been far busier than a normal year with larger nests appearing earlier. I believe that this year the nests will get big. We are having what would appear to be a poor summer with lots of rain, but as far as wasps are concerned, rain is a good thing, meaning plenty of insect food to support a larger brood nest which equates to more wasps and bigger nests.

It is hard to predict how long the wasp season will be this year, but if we have a late warm spell in the summer then things could go on until October/November.
I have witnessed some newly hatched queens whilst I have been treating nests, but this was all on the same day a couple of weeks ago. My thoughts on this are: perhaps there was a shortage of food for a few weeks and some nests were having a hard time. Since then I have not seen any more newly hatched queens and the nests are continuing to get constantly bigger and busier.

There are many different types of wasp trap offered on the market and most of them work in the same way or should I say do not work.

The wasp pot type wasp traps are low efficiency traps and do not actually kill a lot of the wasps that are attracted to it. Thus the trap is basically feeding the wasps.

Wasp Control UK offers only one type of wasp trap, the WaspBane wasp trap.
The WaspBane trap is a high efficiency trap and kills alls the wasps that enter it, this means that scout wasps that discover the trap are killed instantly without having the ability to escape, return to the nest and recruit more wasps to feed.
By using a high efficiency wasp trap like the WaspBane, you will keep the area that the trap is protecting, wasp free!

Read more information about the WaspBane wasp trap

We have also put together wasp trap assembly instructions and also wasp trap setting and placement instructions

First of all, if you do end up with a swarm of bees don’t try and kill them, simply go to our Honey bee swarm collectors list and find out who your local bee swarm collector is and give them a call.
Most swarm collectors are pretty quick to get there and it doesn’t take too long to pick them up and move them on.

Ok, let’s have some facts about bee swarms. When bees swarm they are not trying to attack you. The reason for them swarming is because their original home became too small for the colony so they split the swarm is the half that left the original nest/hive.
When bees swarm they have no home to defend and have fed on honey before their search for a new home and are actually quite happy about the whole affair.
Having said that I wouldn’t suggest that you ignore the process and carry on as if they were not there.
Swarms vary in size from a couple of thousand bees (a cast swarm) to 20,000 strong (a primary swarm). If you are lucky they will land somewhere easy to reach and stay put until the beekeeper can get to them.

The process of swarm collection is very straightforward and simply involves shaking the swarm into a box and placing it on a sheet on the ground, the bees will do the rest. If done late in the day the bees that are still flying will very quickly enter the box where the rest of the bees are and they can then be taken away.

Some swarm collectors don’t charge a fee, but it is considered polite to compensate their fuel costs.
Other swarm collectors charge a small fee for removal.

If you are unlucky and a swarm manages to “get in” somewhere before the swarm collector can catch them, then there are two options, either extraction which as the word suggests can be painful. Or the final solution which we try to avoid if at all possible.

Once treated the nest is usually left where it is and will not be used again by other wasps.
Wasps build new nests each season which actually makes sense from a disease control point of view.
Read about the lifecycle of the wasp

On the odd occasion for one reason or another, a wasp nest will need to be removed, perhaps due to its location!
If this occasion arises the nest will first need to be treated to kill all the flying wasps and nest removal will be done at a later time after the wasps have been killed, usually later in the day or the next day.
If an emergency wasp nest removal needs to be done, there are some insecticides that can be sprayed onto the nest which will kill all the wasps which are inside the nest instantly.  However these quick acting insecticides do not kill the wasps which are out foraging.

Not all pest controllers carry fast acting insecticides, if you are concerned and think you need to have a wasp nest removed urgently, talk to your local pest controller and he or she can advise you on the best course of action.

Most customers will only come across a wasp nest a few times in their life. Often we visit customers who have never had a nest. Their immediate thoughts are “wasp nest removal” when in fact there are some good arguments for leaving the nest where it is if possible.
The normal insecticide dust which is used to kill a wasp nest is quite long lasting and although not harmful to humans or other mammals, wasps certainly do not like it. When a nest is treated the dust used to kill the nest remains, any wasps from other colonies that attempt to raid the treated nest which is now undefended will become contaminated and die or they will make it back to their nest and contaminate that as well.
We believe that often a single treatment will result in killing more than one nest for the reasons above.

Read more about wasp nest removal

So I thought I would jot down my thoughts on this matter and perhaps generate some conversation.

If hard cold winters affected hibernating queen wasps, you could be fairly confident at placing a bet with Ladbrokes that: Siberia won’t have any wasps in the summer. Right?
In fact you would lose your bet. Siberia does have wasps and they manage to hibernate in minus forty degree temperatures without freezing to death. So our relatively mild winters are not about to knock off the hibernating queens, or are they?

I would argue that mild winters are more detrimental to hibernating queen wasps than cold winters are. If we have a normal winter with stable temperatures through till January or February then we have a period of milder temperatures which does happen from time to time, our hibernating queens start to come out of hibernation as if it were spring (late March, early April), these wide awake queen wasps will have no food to sustain them and will starve to death.
Queen wasps that have just emerged from hibernation need to feed on a nectar type food (like all adult wasps do) which in the spring is readily available, however in January or February there is no nectar flow from any plants.

To conclude, I would argue that cold winters produce the maximum amount of queen wasps emerging from hibernation at the right time of year.
Mild winters will see a high percentage of queens perish do to starvation as they emerge at the wrong time.