The 2009 wasp season is almost upon, what would summer be without our old friends the wasps to irritate us as we enjoy our summer evening barbeques?

The wasp has a biology that means they are rarely seen much sooner than July as until then only the queen wasp is in the nest.

In spring the over-wintered queens leave their hibernating sites to look for nesting sites which could be in a hole in the ground, a hollow tree or artificial structures such as air-bricks eaves, lofts and attics, garden sheds etc.

The queen starts to construct her nest with a papery material that she makes by chewing small pieces of wood mixed with saliva; this is known as Wasp paper.

She will raise the first few workers by herself and those workers will then commence the enlargement of the nest and feeding the immature Wasps to follow.

Nest construction gets into full swing in June and will reach its maximum in size in September, when 5 – 30,000 workers may be in the nest. These workers will forage up to 400 metres from the nest. The size of wasp colonies will vary from year to year, the severity of the previous winter is probably the key factor.

In the early Autumn the immature queens mate and leave the nest to hibernate, the rest of the nest dies out and the nest is never reused.

Individuals react differently to being stung by wasps; some are hardly affected, others suffer considerable pain and discomfort and a few become seriously allergic to being stung, which in severe cases results in sudden death due to anaphylactic shock. Control It is advisable to let a professional Pest Controller destroy a Wasps’ nest for the reasons mentioned above. An insecticide will be injected into the entrance to the nest. Returning wasps will carry the insecticide into the heart of the nest and within a few hours all wasps should be dead.

It is not a good idea to allow a wasps’ nest to remain untreated as the resultant queens produced by the nest will invariably nest nearby in the following spring resulting in many more nests the following year. For this reason several nests are often found close together in a neighbourhood a locality.

Tags: Health and Well Being, how to get rid of a wasps' nest, wasp killer, wasps', wasps' nests