Wasps

I thought I heard an ominous buzzing in our roof space before we went away on holiday and had half convinced myself that we would come home to an infestation. In fact by the time we came home there was no buzzing. Obviously that particular wasp didn't think we had the right sort of conditions to set up home.

Then on Wednesday a daughter of my friend was stung in our garden and I noticed a wasp nest under our neighbour's guttering. There is a serious amount of wasp activity.

The following morning Paul woke up with a wasp in his ear at 5am. Frankly it was rather disconcerting for him.

So I went round to tell the neighbours about the nest, but I doubt they will deal with it. They are in an upstairs flat and since they hadn't noticed and have no garden it's not a big concern for them. Plus it's a very dull thing to spend your money on.

What to do then? Oh yes the Internet. Paul looked and discovered two things about wasps:

1. Wasps are a bit slow. If you hang a blown up paper bag somewhere they will be fooled into thinking it's another wasp nest temporarily and leave that area alone. I was at a show today situated next to a cupcake stall so was preparing myself for a wasp onslaught. Then I remembered about the bag. I figured it wouldn't hurt to try out the theory, at the very least it would stop Paul going on about it. Bizarrely it seemed to work almost instantly. From loads of wasps, to one or two. After about three hours they came back. Paul said we should have moved the bag at this point as they might be slow but they aren't stupid and work out pretty quickly it's a fake. Who knew?

2. The only predators you can introduce to deter wasps are...badgers. So a few problems there then. Paul's first concern was how to to get the badger into the attic in case the wasps did decide to move in here. Then he was concerned about how to get it to leave since badgers have no known predators. Based on a previous run in with a badger in our back garden there is no chance Paul would be chasing it down the stairs.

I'm more concerned with how we are going to get the badger to float up to the neighbour's bathroom window.

I know my uncle has purchased a fake wasp nest. I'm going to make do with paper bags and move them around the garden every couple of hours. Well obviously I won't be doing that but I'll put one up when we're eating outside. And I'll look sternly at the wasp nest every day and see if I can make them feel uncomfortable.