Wasps at the Bottom of a Queen’s Park Garden
The far end of a long garden is the quietest ground on the plot. It has cover, weathered wood to chew into paper, and a whole summer in which nobody looks closely at the fascia board of the studio or the underside of a shed roof. That is why so many nests here are found in August by somebody fetching something, rather than in June when the nest was the size of a plum. Where wasps build nests around houses runs through the openings worth checking.
Garden studios, sheds and hedges
On a garden studio the weak points are the gap behind the fascia, the joint where a flat or shallow-pitched roof overhangs the frame, and the ventilated space above the ceiling lining. A studio used as an office makes this urgent in a way a shed does not: somebody is sitting under the nest with the doors open for eight hours a day. Sheds take nests under the felt, behind stacked pots and in folded garden furniture, and a thick boundary hedge will hide one completely until it is trimmed. Ivy over an old garden wall does the same. Nests you cannot see into explains why the entrance tells you more than the shape.
Ground nests in the lawn
An undisturbed lawn under mature trees is good ground for a nest built underneath it, often in an abandoned mouse hole or a soft patch by a tree root. What you see is a bare hole a couple of centimetres across with a steady stream of traffic low to the grass and no paper visible at all. This is the type worth taking seriously before anyone brings out a mower or a strimmer, because vibration close to the entrance provokes a response from the whole nest at once. If you have a gardener coming, tell them where the hole is and keep them off that section. What to do about a nest in the ground covers the rest, and flying ants pouring out of a paving crack for one afternoon are something else entirely.
Higher Up: Stacks, Parapets and the Front Lightwell
These houses are tall, and the roofline carries a lot of edge — a stack with several unused flues, a parapet gutter behind the front wall, deep eaves and the small roof over a bay or a rear addition. A nest up there announces itself as a thin line of wasps crossing the same patch of sky, and the flight path often runs straight down over the steps and the front lightwell, which is exactly where people come and go. If your home is one flat in a converted villa, say which windows look onto the line, and let the freeholder or managing agent know when the opening is on the roof or the stack rather than beside your own window. The signs of an active nest helps you separate a nest from wasps merely passing through, and telling wasps from bees is worth a minute before you call anybody. Noise is a poor guide on its own: a dry, papery rustle inside a chimney breast on a hot afternoon can be a nest in the flue, whereas a heavier thump and scrabble overhead at dawn and again at dusk is a squirrel in the roof.
What not to do while you wait
- Leave the opening alone — filling it while the nest is live pushes the wasps to find another way out, which can be inwards through a ceiling or a lower-ground room
- Keep mowers, strimmers and hedge trimmers away from a ground nest or a hedge nest, and warn whoever cuts the grass
- Do not lean a ladder against a parapet or a studio roof for a closer look
- Shut the windows nearest the entrance, especially any directly under it
- Keep children, pets and garden meals out of the flight line across the lawn
Booking a Wasp Visit in Queen’s Park
Tell us where you think the entrance is, roughly how high, and how we reach it: through the house to the garden, along a side return, or through a gate onto a rear path, and whether that gate is kept locked. If the nest is at the studio, say whether it is unlocked and whether anything needs moving away from the wall. Anyone in the household who has reacted badly to a sting before should stay indoors and well away from the flight line, and signs of a severe allergic reaction after a sting mean calling 999. Prices for the rest of the borough are on Wasp Nest Removal Brent.
The days after the visit
Wasps returning to the entrance for a while afterwards are normal rather than a sign that nothing happened, so leave the opening open, keep the nearest windows shut and stay off that part of the lawn for a few days. An old nest is not taken over the following year, because next spring’s queens start again somewhere new, so a dead nest in a flue or above a studio ceiling can usually be left where it is. If it is still active within 30 days we come back at no extra cost — will wasps return after treatment? sets out what to expect in between.
Fewer Nests Around the Garden Next Spring
Nothing makes an old roof or a timber studio wasp-proof, but a short list of winter jobs cuts down the openings on offer. Our Brent wasp advice goes wider, and neighbouring Kensal Green has much the same roofs and gardens.
- Once the nest is dead, have the fascia and the roof junction on the studio repaired, and ask a roofer to look at the stack and any capped flue
- Walk the garden in April and May and look for a small grey ball the size of a golf ball under the studio eaves, in the shed and inside the hedge — call rather than knock it down
- Keep the shed shut through spring and shake out stored furniture and covers before you use them
- Cut hedges early in the season rather than in August, when a nest inside will be large
- Lidded bins, cleared windfall fruit and covered drinks make the garden far less interesting to foraging wasps in September
