Hornets Nest

Quite a time.

A colony of rats has found the food supply of preserved larvae in the wall cavity but they been poisoned by the same thing that poisoned the hornets and have died. The stench of death will linger for many months or until you get rid of the dead rats - unless its already too late and bodily fluids have penetrated into the plaster.

We had a few wasp/hornet nests before we decided to get the roofline done :-) I used to spray them, but after finding dead wasps everywhere (and, presumably, leaving hundreds of them dead in the nests), I decided to give them a wide berth for a few months, and let them move out. They never came back to the same place.

They die at the start of winter, for the most part, except the queens who will prolly hibernate in your loft. I remember going up into the SiL's loft one winter. Turning on the 60W incandescent was enough to wake three queens up.

There's a comment there just waiting to come out...

I remember pulling old nests out - like great big balls of expanding foam. I couldn't help opening them up out of curiosity, and was relieved to find them empty. But maybe there were queens in there. I wasn't /that/ thorough :-)

Little buggers are constantly looking for holes in the pointing in summer.

Ant Dec and Freddy Mercury?

I think normally they leave the nest and fly off to find somewhere to hibernate - leaf pile, hole in the ground, loft, shed, etc.

Hudson Hornets are worth a few bob.

NT

I've always assumed that the queens build the little round golf ball sized things to over-winter in. The big nests are always completely empty come winter.

Well is the smell from the decaying hornets, or from the chemicals used to get rid of them. It worries me that as this is obviously a cavity wall that no other work was done. Would not a decaying lump of whatever eventually cause a bridge inside the cavity for damp or whatever? Brian

Nothing like being cheerful then... I guess it depends how far from an access point the nest was. Brian

Well my hand was forced with wasps as they had got through th party wall to my neighbour who wanted them gone, so I got a man in. it transpired the actual nest was around a hot water pipe under the floor in my bathroom. Only about 70 percent of it could be got to to remove and the rest were dealt with with chemicals. I then had some very narrow mesh put over all the air bricks on that side of the building as the wasps wanted to go back in, which is against all the experts opinions. However maybe a nice warm water pipe makes the nest there all year round. who knows. I do not like destroying these insects as they are after all all part of an echo system and unbalancing it is a bit of a no no usually. The lack of hedgehogs is because we all now have much better fencing between our gardens etc. Brian

In message , Brian Gaff writes

Without Wasps, Ladybirds and other insect predators, (and agricultural sprays) I understand we would be several feet deep in Green/Blackfly each year.

I don't think the current level of Badger protection is doing much for Hedgehogs either but let us not go there:-)

Wasps never reuse an old nest, although they might reuse the same entrance into the loft.

I took a large one down to give to a school teacher to take in to class. It had been in my loft for 10+ years. Whilst it was in a carrier bag waiting to be taken, I noticed a few moths came out.

I think they're nests that never got much beyond the foundations before whatever built it gave up or died.

I've recently removed two such golf-balls from the loft area of my late mother's bungalow. I know one of them has been there ever since she had the soffits and fascias replaced by PVC, so I suspect the wasps were just getting started when their access was cut off.

Or when a tornado passes by and lifts them and their contents into the next county.

I was a little surprised by the OP's description of the beasties as hornets. AIUI hornets tend to make their nests in dead wood such as the stumps of trees etc. and not usually in house walls. But if it's a wooden house...

In message , Chris Hogg writes

I had a nest in our garage. Similar to a Wasps nest.

I'd get rid of hornets anywhere near the house toot sweet. You kill one near their nest and you're likely to get the whole lot after you.