Wasps ( Vespula vulgaris ) are beneficial garden insects, collecting insects and larvae etc. to feed to developing wasp larvae in the nest during the summer months. Worker wasps will feed on a variety of foods including fruits such as apples, pears and plums. They collect wood to construct nests and may damage the wooden fences and garden furniture in the process.

By the end of the summer, the queen wasp stops laying eggs and the workers no longer need to collect food for the young in the nest. They become free to search for sweet things such as cakes or sweets and can become a nuisance.

It is the ability of wasps to cause painful stings that concerns people most. 

People's reactions to wasp stings can vary considerably from intense pain and swelling round the area of the sting, to a severe allergic reaction (known as anaphylactic shock) which can be life threatening.

How do they live?

The queen wasp lays eggs in the nest and hatch into larvae within a few days. Four to six weeks after the eggs are laid the first generation of workers emerge. These are female wasps which are smaller than the queens and take over responsibility for maintaining the nest and finding food, in particular high protein foodstuffs for the larvae such as flies, caterpillars, or spiders. 

The queen then devotes all her time to laying eggs and by the end of the summer the nest may contain 20,000 or more wasps. In the autumn the new queens and males produced from the nest mate and the fertilised queens search for hibernation sites. With the onset of winter weather the nests die out and are never reused

Can I treat them?

Treating wasps nest can be very dangerous. You should only have the nest treated by a proffesional only!, many a times have i been to a customers premises and heard of the stings they have recieved in attempting to control the nest the cheap way

How do we treat them?

At Sussex Pest Control Services we use only the latest techniques and insecticides to control wasps. At present we use a Bendiocarb based Ficam D insecticide which we inject into the core of the nest (or the entrance if access is not available). The dust which is injected with pressure circulates around the nest and kills the queen, this in turn creates a domino effect knocking the workers dead. The full proccess normally takes no longer than 2 hours, however sometimes it will take as long as a day

If you are still seeing a problem within 2 days of the treatment we will return free of charge as part of our guarantee and re-treat the nest in question.

Examples of wasps habitat:

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East & West Sussex Wasp Control Services