House-Hunting Wasps

Warm spring days don’t just draw people out into the garden – wasps and hornets are also on the move, looking for sheltered spots to build a new home. If you keep an eye out early and remove potential nesting sites, you can spare yourself a lot of trouble.

Where do they actually build?

Wasps prefer sheltered cavities with little draught. Typical examples include roller shutter boxes, eaves, cladding, garden sheds, decking and garages. Hornets like it especially quiet and dark; lofts, barns and old tree hollows are their favourite locations. Spring and early summer are the key weeks for nest founding.

How to spot a new nest

A young nest is surprisingly inconspicuous. The building material is chewed wood, which looks like greybrown paper; at first, the comb is barely bigger than a golf ball. It becomes suspicious when you notice a marked increase in flight activity from a particular gap or hole, or if you hear buzzing and humming from cavities behind roller shutter boxes, in the roof or in the wall. Anyone who picks up on these signs should act quickly. At this stage the nest is still small, the colony manageable and professional relocation comparatively straightforward. By the way: “If you have a home emergency cover policy, your insurer will in most cases pay for the removal of the nest, for example by a pest controller,” says ERGO expert Janna Poll.

Prevention is better than relocation

The best protection is to stop potential nesting sites being accessible in the first place. “Cracks and gaps in façades, roller shutter boxes and eaves can be sealed with standard expanding foam or silicone,” advises the ERGO expert. Loft windows, cellar light wells and ventilation openings are best secured with finemesh insect netting. Roller shutter boxes should be serviced regularly, as they are among the most common points of entry. Empty bird boxes are particularly attractive to wasps, so it’s worth taking a quick look inside in spring. If you also make sure that sweet foods, open bins and pet food are always properly closed, you reduce the incentive for wasps to settle in the immediate vicinity of the house.

Important: Know the legal position

Reaching for a broom handle may be tempting, but it is against the law. Wasps and hornets are protected species. Nests must not be destroyed under any circumstances, regardless of the time of year. If you want to have a nest removed or relocated, you generally need a special permit from the authorities. The responsible body is your local nature conservation office or lower nature conservation authority.

Checklist: Wasp season check for house and garden

1. Check roller shutter boxes, façade cracks and eaves for gaps and seal them.
2. Fit insect mesh over ventilation openings and cellar light wells.
3. Inspect the loft, sheds and garden buildings for the beginnings of nests.
4. Check bird boxes.
5. Watch flight behaviour: do wasps keep circling the same spot?
6. Suspect a nest? Contact the nature conservation authority or a pest controller – do not remove it yourself.
7. Store food, bins and pet food in a way that is waspproof.