We don’t very often get a chance to see a hornets nest as they tend to build them in cavities or cracks in the wall, so when I visited a client with a hornet problem last week, I was quite surprised to see a fully formed nest in the middle of the loft space. Again, doing a hornet control treatment as late as November is also pretty rare, but with the position of the nest well into the loft and also so unusually mild weather, the occupants of the nest were still very much alive and kicking!

This short video shows the remains of the hornets nest – unfortunately I never had the video camera with me to show it in situ – and we had to kill all the hornets before we could remove it, so quite a bit of damage occurred in getting it out. Despite this, it shows the amazing structure very clearly and is still in pretty good shape.

Hornets nests are significantly smaller in numbers than wasp nests – the average wasp nest is about 5 to 10 thousand wasps, where as the average hornets nest is about 500 tops. Hornets feed mostly on insects and at night, however if you ever disturb a hornets nest – get out of there quickly. They are very protective and aggressive to any attacks and a sting is not only painful, but potentially very dangerous – nest removal should only be attempted by a professional pest control company like Rapid Pest Control.

As a side line, one night we watched a hornet attack a moth and kill it when it was flying around a lamp on the table outside – it took this moth on the wing like a hawk and simply landed on the table and ate this moth. One of our guests was totally freaked out by it all but he hornet was completely oblivious to us and just went about its business.

Anyway, all wasp and hornets nests are pretty much dead now so its time to service all the wasp control gear, dry clean the not so white wasp suit and put everything back into storage now until next season. Over the season we attended hundreds of wasp problems in the Newbury area, the worst house having 11 nests in and around the house – mainly because they failed to treat the problem of the previous year.

We are now moving towards rat and mouse problems with the weather turning as well as rabbit problems – ferreting is really just kicking off, so summer is now offically over at Rapid Pest Control headquarters!

If you have a pest problem, contact Rapid Pest Control now via the website or call Newbury 01635 247192 anytime for a fast and reliable pest control service in the Berkshire area.