It s survival of the queen.
Wasp nest in attic winter.
Spray the nest according to the directions on your spray.
While one or two small wasps won t cause much damage to the structure of your home several hundred certainly could.
They can damage the insulation in your attic and interfere with the structure of your walls.
After the initial structure is in place somewhere sturdy and sheltered which is why wasps often choose loft spaces and guttering the queen will start to lay eggs in the nest s cells.
I am quite protective and never harm the queens.
The structure of a wasp nest is able to withstand the meteorological conditions outside but this doesn t mean the wasps will use it again a new wasp is made when the winter is over.
Although wasps will never return to a previously used nest several species of wasp will build their new nest on top of the old one.
In winter wasps are using your walls and your attic crawl spaces to hide from the cold.
If the nest is a hanging nest make sure you purchase a spray with a projectile shot so that you can completely cover the nest with it.
During winter when the temperatures drop low only the wasp queen gets through the hibernation process the rest of the colony is wiped out completely.
The motto of wasps is not survival of the fittest.
From your description the nest is probably a bald faced hornet nest which are very common in our area.
All members of a wasp colony do whatever it takes to keep the queen alive to lay eggs when the weather warms.
Another common place to see wasp nests and sometimes an occasional hibernating queen or two is in the loft or attic.
If your wasps have built a nest on the floor of your attic bomb style wasp poisons work very well.
Wasp nests do take longer to die off after treatment in the autumn and winter mainly due to the lower metabolism of the wasps making the absorption of insecticide slower.
As stated we have had hibernating wasp queens in the attic and we found a nest already abandoned.
Nests are helpful when trying to identify the type of social wasp.
It can take 10 20 days for a wasp nest to die off when treated at this time of year compared with a few hours in july or august.
Therefore it is a good idea to knock down any empty abandoned nests over the winter and thoroughly clean the area before the queen wasp reclaims the area come springtime.
Wasp nests in the loft or attic.
However for the rest of the wasps in winter the outlook isn t good.
