Tuesday, 1 October 2013

(Under)ground Cover...

Our hens alerted us to something unusual outside one end of their run this morning. When Colin went to see what all the fuss was about, this is what he saw..
And on closer inspection...
 

It would appear we have a wasps' underground nest, and a very active one at that. Fortunately it is NOT inside the hen's run, but the question is do we want it anywhere in the garden??

Any thoughts please?
Posted by Colin and Elizabeth at 17:54
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3 comments:

Tim said...

Wasps are a "gardener's friend"...
they remove rotten wood from branches, etc. to build their nest...
but apart from that they are mainly carnivores... and eat a goodly quantity of aphids and other plant attacking species.
If left alone, they won't cause harm to man nor beast... the nest won't overwinter, the queens will disperse and look for good hibernation corners, leaving the colony to die out.

I would suggest, in the interim, making sure that the hens can't disturb the nest further by putting some chicken mesh around the spot.

HOWEVER, it could be that the wasps have only recently discovered a bumble bee nest [and they often nest underground] and are raiding it for the honey... in which case, they'll be gone once the food source is depleted.

Try observing their flight lines...
if flight paths are reasonably widespread, it is probably their nest....
if they mainly tend to fly off towards a fixed point...
that will be where their nest can be found.

At this point in the season, I would have thought that the "gals" would have drawn your attention to a wasps nest sooner... it won't be a new wasps nest, certainly.

1 October 2013 at 19:33
Susan said...

You could just wait for the neighbourhood badger to dig it up and eat the wasp larvae. That's what usually happens to underground wasp nests.

1 October 2013 at 20:55
Colin and Elizabeth said...

Thanks Tim. The nest is outside the hen pen so should be OK. Susan. Not sure we get Badgers in the garden but who knows will keep an eye on it!

2 October 2013 at 13:47

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