Wasps in December?

dapbi

We are in a detached house in Wexford and last night I noticed about 20+ wasps in the upstairs bathroom which I got rid of. This morning after getting up there are 40+ in there now, and there were another 20+ in the kitchen.

I've never seen wasps this late in the year before, do they hibernate?

There is obviously a nest somewhere, any advise on how to deal with it (We are completely snowed in)?

Mothman

We need to make sure they are wasps. Do you have means to take photo and upload?

Only queens hibernate and they are well entrenched by now. I've found 8 hibernating in my barn.

My feeling is they are vey unlikely to be wasps.

dapbi

Here are some photos. There have been about 100 of them so far, with more coming.

They are in the utility room and bathroom upstairs. These 2 rooms are nearly over each other. They are getting into the utility room via the fuse box which I have blocked off. They are coming up through the floorboards in the bathroom.

They seem very drowsy and have trouble flying. No problem scooping them up on the end of a piece of paper.

We haven't had heat in the house for 8 days now. These rooms are very cold and only a couple of degrees difference from outside.

Mothman

Well I'm sorry to have doubted you, but my feeling was wrong!
They are wasps as in social wasps. I haven't checked which species, but this is irrelevent to you. With those numbers, I doubt they are queens and I think you somehow have an active nest which of course you have already mentioned.
Can't offer much advice but to chuck them out. There will be a limited number so there will be an end to it but I can only guess when that might be but I don't think it'll be 1000s, rather in the order of 100s. I'm sure they will succumb to cold outside and not return but you might want to make sure they can't come back because they seem to be a hardy lot!

I suppose one has to look at the bright side and be thankful they are drowsy in the cold but I can imagine it is not a nice experience to have 100s emerging into your living area.
Good luck

dapbi

Thanks Mothman for the advice and reassurance. I've had nests before with 20,000+ in them and was hoping that this wasn't the case.

Will keep chucking them out then.

Dave

Mothman

Looked up about over wintering nests. German wasps do this sometimes.
See here for identification
The 3 dots on face.

Considering with what I've just read, I'm not so sure of it just being 100s.
My thinking now is to continue blocking off access into your living area if possible and perhaps call in pest control when they can get there.
I've been enlightened during past hour.
I'd be interested in hearing updates, but not at the expense of other priorities. I'm glad you have the mind to deal with them while your snowbound

dapbi

The good news is that there have been no more wasps in the utility room and kitchen since I blocked up the fuse box.

Next time I see one in the bathroom I'll try and get a proper shot of it for identification purposes looking for those 3 dots on the face.

dapbi

So have had a few more wasps in the house this afternoon.
I haven't been able to take a decent photograph of one yet, lens on iphone not good enough. Am looking for the SLR.

The wasps don't look like German Wasps, they only have one large black patch on their face. Though I did get a few small ones that could have had three dots but they were so small it looked like on black patch. The bigger wasps have a single large patch.

Was on to rentokill, was told to locate the nest and as soon as the road thaws a bit they can come out to extermiate then.

Managed to get oil this afternoon from the local shop so with the house warmer we might have a few more coming in.

FoxyVixen

It could be a specie of hornet either. How long is it? These guys are usually much hardier and granted can be much more aggressive when more "sober". We came across some in Galway only last year. Huge feckers and damn they can move and will chase ya for a lenghty period.

They're not hugely popular in Ireland, but where they do occur large numbers are found.

dapbi

They are about 2.5cm long. They could be a type of hornet though during the summer/autumn period the wasps we had around the outside of the house weren't that aggressive.

We got a lot of them into the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom up to about midnight last night. But when we woke up this morning there were only 6 in the whole house. There are a few more in this morning.

I've attached a picture of a close up of the face of a wasp.

Going nest hunting in the attic shortly.

recedite

I think they are the "common" wasp; looking at the first 3 pics, the stripes on the back are in a w pattern ie without the separated dots.

I had a nest in an earth bank outside the house this year, and there was suddenly a lot of activity about 3 weeks ago for some reason, but all quiet now.

Your walls must have dropped in temperature considerably over the last week, having been kept relatively stable before that by the central heating. This was a catastrophic event for them (and quite bad for you), it seems to have triggered them to make a last ditch escape. Like Scott in the antarctic when he realised the game was up....I'm just going outside , I may be some time...

I would have a look in the meter box outside; the white plastic box set into the wall; you will need a triangular key or a longnose pliers to open it. There is a duct from there leading to your fuseboard that they could be using.
It might be all over by the time rentokil arrive.

dapbi

Recedite, I think your right. We've had central heating back on for 3 days and the amount of wasps in the house has dropped to none.

I install an electricity monitor in the meter box 2 weeks ago and there was no nest there.
Was up in the attic yesterday, lots of interesting wild life, looks like we had bats there by the droppings on the ground, there are lots and lots of flies crawling around, as well as spiders and a couple of birds nests. But no sign of the wasp nest.

We have a wierd roof configuration and one of the points which drops to the ground floor (alongside the bathroom and runs over the fuse box) is inaccessible. When I turned on the light in the attic I did see 2 wasps come from there. I suspect the nest is in there. May wait till the nest becomes active again to get in rentokill, might be waste of a call out without know exactly where the nest is.