Wasp nest on branch - weird

[d000hg]

I spotted what looked like a pile of soggy toilet paper on the ground just now in the garden. My first thought was "that looks a bit like a wasp nest" but there was no structure nearby for it to have hidden. I would've put it down as rubbish except it's too far from a boundary to get thrown over.

On closer inspection I noticed there IS a wasp nest in the tree above, about the size of a honeydew melon. Not on a thick bough but right on the tip of a branch.

Is this normal? It is not only exposed to the wind but the rain too - surely not a great place for a paper structure! What seems to happen in fact is that in recent rain, the outer layers have got soggy and sloughed off. No active wasps to be seen but hard to imagine it's been there longer than this summer, surely? A bit worried if it is active, it might fall on someone!

[OwlHoot]

ISTR wasps nests tend to be multi-layered. So it may be the outer layer has sloughed off by wind and rain, leaving a formerly interior layer as the new outside.

I'd wait a couple of months until winter and then clobber it once the worker wasps have all died off.

[barrydidit]

I was hoping for a punchline to this story. Alas, there was no sting in the tail.

[WTFH]

There's a foam spray you can get that will kill off the nest.
It needs to be sprayed from about 6" or less, so my advice would be that you hold the ladder for your wife.

[d000hg]

I'm amazed we haven't seen a active nest this year - we have some dead ones in the loft and one tried to grown under the eaves but I got it when it was a single shell.

It just strikes me that with the house, garage and shed as well as a bunch of tree trunks to choose from, the very tip of a yew tree branch that waves in the slightest breeze is not the obvious nest site... I wonder what attracted the queen to pick it!

It's probably 20+ feet off the ground - maybe that's why we never noticed the wasps, they were traveling further afield - so my only options are a really long stick or improving my throwing ability. I rather expect that as the weather turns, it will not last long.

[Jog On]

I saw what looked like a tennis ball stuck in the corner of our garage ceiling. Turns out it was a nest of false widow spiders

[OwlHoot]

I saw what looked like a tennis ball stuck in the corner of our garage ceiling. Turns out it was a nest of false widow spiders

I've heard the worst bite of any spider indigenous to the British Isles is that of the Woodlouse spider, as they have enormous and very strong fangs and quite powerful venom. A nip from one of them may well have you queuing in casualty with a suppurating swollen wound.

Mind you, a tennis ball full of False Widow spiders must run them a pretty close second.

[Paddy]

I spotted what looked like a pile of soggy toilet paper on the ground just now in the garden. My first thought was "that looks a bit like a wasp nest" but there was no structure nearby for it to have hidden. I would've put it down as rubbish except it's too far from a boundary to get thrown over.

On closer inspection I noticed there IS a wasp nest in the tree above, about the size of a honeydew melon. Not on a thick bough but right on the tip of a branch.

Is this normal? It is not only exposed to the wind but the rain too - surely not a great place for a paper structure! What seems to happen in fact is that in recent rain, the outer layers have got soggy and sloughed off. No active wasps to be seen but hard to imagine it's been there longer than this summer, surely? A bit worried if it is active, it might fall on someone!

The wasps probably woke up and spotted what looked like an old dilapidated council house and garden just outside their nest. How the fu££ did that get there. One day we are high and dry in a block of flats next day here in this soggy mess. Is this normal?

[xoggoth]

Lots of nice little spiders here:

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...sehold-spiders

Back to nice little wasps. Initially, the nests look like little round xmas tree balls. Grow pretty big and can make rafters quite damp. If you feed them with jam they leave you alone.

[NotAllThere]

Oh yes. A WASP nest. Naturally. Wouldn't be a BAME nest. Of course not.

Racist.