Find the flight line first
A nest tends to be given away by the coming and going around it, well before it's spotted directly, as anyone near Walworth will recognise, where terraced streets and postwar estates close to the Walworth Road shops. From a safe distance on a mild afternoon, watch for wasps returning repeatedly to the same spot on the roofline or a garden structure.
Under terraced roof tiles
The Victorian terraces across Camberwell, Peckham and Nunhead often have a slipped tile or a gap at the fascia that gives a queen a way into the roof space in spring, and these roofs are close enough to street level that a nest is often audible from the pavement.
Communal gardens behind converted houses
Where a Victorian house has been split into flats, the communal garden behind it, often shared and less closely tended than a single household's own patch, gives a queen an undisturbed spot to start a nest in a shed or overgrown corner without anyone noticing straight away.
What to do today
- Keep children and pets away from the flight line
- Keep windows shut on the side of the house where the nest is
- Leave the entrance open and the nest untouched
- Clear fallen fruit and sweet drinks from the garden, which draw wasps late in summer
Why late summer feels worse
The colony's at its yearly peak by August and September, but the queen has mostly stopped laying, meaning fewer larvae and less of the secretion workers depend on, much as it does near Nunhead, where victorian terraces on the rising ground around the cemetery and the green. Without that supply, workers turn to bins and drinks, which is exactly why this time of year is the worst point to disturb a nest, just as near Bermondsey, where former warehouses converted to flats sit among Victorian terraces close to the river.
Booking wasp nest removal in Southwark
A standard wasp nest removal in Southwark is a £90 fixed price, guaranteed: if the nest is still active within 30 days we come back at no extra cost, and that applies equally whether the nest turns up near Nunhead - where victorian terraces on the rising ground around the cemetery and the green - or anywhere else nearby, so book wasp nest removal and tell us roughly where the entrance is, with the full terms on the Southwark wasp nest removal page.
