Wasps & Hornet Nest Control with Able Wasp control Cotswolds & Gloucestershire

The queen wasps come out of hibernation around the end of April early May depending of course on the weather. The queen will begin to build a small table tennis ball sized nest out of chewed up wood pulp that she gathers from fences sheds and garden furnture etc. These nests can start in a variety of places such as lofts, trees, holes in the walls or even in the ground, depending on the type of wasp. In this nest she lays the first batch of eggs. Once the eggs hatch the young wasps become workers building the nest bigger and foraging for food to feed the nest. The queen then becomes an egg laying machine and does not venture out of the nest again.

Nests can grow at an alarming rate, in the early stages, doubling in size every few days. We often get call outs where people swear blind the nest was not there yesterday.

By September I have seen nests the size of tea chests, and have heard reports of nests growing even bigger. In September the old queen starts producing new queens. These will then mate with the males in the nest and go off to find somewhere warm and sheltered to hibernate for the winter. There could be several thousand new queens produced, most of these will not survive the winter, dying from the cold or other means. Never the less 10% of 1000 is 100 queens looking for somewhere to start again next

year.

As the weather gets colder the old queen and the workers die. Wasps never use the same nest twice, though you may be unlucky and have a new nest started in exactly the same place, but this is purely coincidental.

If it was not for the sting Wasps would not be thought of as pests. In fact they can be very beneficial to the environment, and especially to the gardener, They kill off aphids and green fly, they help pollenate flowers, clear carcasses, and their grubs make great fishing bait.

Allthough there are many products available to the public for treating wasps nests, it is not recommended that the average householder should attempt DIY control. All products need the person doing the treatment to get " up close and personal " with the nest. Wasps will attack when they feel threatened, and even the smallest of nests in June could be home to dozens of wasps, by September there could be 20,000 wasps in a nest, and a wasp is capable of stinging many times.

Treatment should only be carried out by trained professionals. One tip when searching for a Pest Control Company. Try to find one that is based local to you. Stay away from adverts with lots of numbers for your area. These are usually the call centres that will rip you off.

We cover Gloucester, Cheltenham, Stow On The Wold, Moreton In The Marsh, Chipping Campden, Burford, Lechlade, Fairford, South Cerney, Swindon, Malmesbury, Tetbury, Stroud, Avening, Stonehouse, Painswick and every village in between

Able Pest Control

6 The Hemplands

Chedworth

Cheltenham

Glos GL54 4NH

Tel 01285720651 Mobile 07971236281 e mail dennis@ablepest.co.uk