Get Rid Of Hornet Problems | Hornet Nest Removal Specialists
Hornets are much bigger than wasps. If you have a nest you’ll see hornets, between May and November, entering and leaving a hole in the ground, wall, roof or any other part of a building. You may also see hornets inside your home, particularly when the days are shortening as they are attracted to artificial light.
A hornet nest is a grey or beige structure made of a papier-mâché like material.
Do not be tempted to block the hole up as this will make the hornets angry and aggressive but it won’t kill the nest and they’ll find another entrance. Hornets will sting readily if they think the nest is in danger but generally they are less aggressive than wasps.
Why should a hornet nest be treated?
If you don’t treat a hornets nest it will eventually die out but before this happens the nest will produce fertile queens which will hibernate and start nests the following year.
Hornet nest treatment
The entrance to the nest or the nest itself will be treated using a modern biodegradable insecticide that is not highly toxic to mammals, but is extremely so to wasps.
What do I need to do afterwards?
After treatment the nest will remain in a hyperactive state for up to 3-hours. Keep people and pets away from the area until activity has ceased. Close windows and warn neighbours to keep away.
The 3 main points to remember are:
- A treated nest cannot ever be reused.
- A hornet nest cannot move its location, once started it is there for the duration of its life (7-8 months), nor can hornets move from one nest to another.
- All nests start in the spring, never later than May, but the expanding populations are not often noticed until much later in the year. The population expands from 1, when the nest starts up in the spring, to a maximum of 700 by the autumn but usually it’s much less than this.
The nest itself is made of a substance similar to papier-mâché , which will not rot or smell, so it is quite safe and hygienic to leave where it is. If the nest is accessible and you do decide to remove it, wait for at least 4-weeks as this will ensure that no one will get stung by any hornets that have hatched after the queen has died, occasionally scratching may be heard from the nest during this period but as long as outside activity has ceased, don’t worry as this will soon die out. If the nest is treated in the autumn dying hornets, queens and drones may still appear for up to 20-days after treatment. Never block the entrance to a nest unless you are quite sure the nest is dead.
PEST UK’s Guarantee
We guarantee that a treated nest will never be used again and the actual location of the treated nest will not be reused by other hornets for the remainder of the calendar year.
Hornet activity can remain for up to 2-weeks in the summer and up to 20-days in autumn after the treatment.
What products do we use?
Listed below are some of the insecticides we may use. Click to access its data sheet
Insecticide sprays.
Effect Microtech CS Permethrin 8% w/w HSE 9401
K-Othrine WG250 Deltamethrin 25% w/w HSE 8092
Insecticide powder
Ficam D Bendiocarb 1% w/w HSE 4829
All insecticides are biodegradable, almost odourless, non-tainting and do not corrode or stain, as well as being completely harmless to mammals.
ABOUT HORNETS
Over the past 10 years PEST UK has been seeing an ever increasing amount of Hornets. They do best in ‘poor’ wasp years, these are years that for whatever reasons the number of wasp nests have been low. It may be that they prefer different conditions but must probably is that they are competing for the same foods and living spaces. Although much larger than wasps and individually a wasp is no match for a hornet their nests contain only several hundred where as wasp nests may contain several thousand. The life cycle of both wasps and hornets are nearly identical. Although Hornet nests can contain several hundred hornets in reality it may be much less. I have found nests in late Summer that only had about 10 hornets in. I believe that if the nest struggles they may act as do some Bumble Bee species in the arctic, they either don’t produce workers but go straight on to produce queens and drones or produce fewer workers before producing the queens and drones.
A PEST UK Hornet call outs peak in the Autumn. The reason for this is light. Although this is also apparent with wasps it seems more so with hornets that they are attracted to artificial light, especially when the days start drawing in. Often the first indication a house holder will have of a hornets nest is when they find them buzzing around lights. Locating a hornets nest can be difficult if the number of hornets in the nest is small. A nest with a low number in will produce a lot less ‘traffic’ (the movement of hornets into & leaving the nest). Looking at traffic of a wasp or hornets nest may be the only way to locate a nest if the nest cannot be seen, if it was built in a place like in a cavity wall or boxed off area.
Lifecycle
The lifecycle of hornets is the same as wasps. Queens emerge from hibernation in the Spring and construct a nest. Eggs are laid in the special constructed cells which hatch into grubs. These are fed a high protein diet of insects and grubs. The first batch to pupate and turn into adults are workers which are sterilised females. These workers take over the running of the nest. Mid to late Summer the Queen lays the last batch of eggs which are fed a diet that allows them to be the sexual forms of the species, Queens and Drones. These mate with Queens and Drones from other nests, the original Queen, workers and Drones die off by the Winter and the new Queens hibernate and the cycle continues.
