Where do wasps go in winter?

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huxley

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I had some aluminum siding comes off from the over hang of my roof. There were wasp or yellow jackets nest inside my roof over the summer. They appear to be gone now that it is cold.

I'm wondering/afraid that they may have gone deeper into the roof to hibernate? I have to replace some sheetrock in my bathrooms ceiling, and don't want to disturb them!

I do live in the beehive state!? So where do they go in winter?

Thanks,
Pat
 
Sounds like you may have Yellerjackets.Most wasps build externally.Either way they should be gone.Yellow Jacket,Wasp as well as most other bee queens leave the nest in the Fall to start other colonies elsewhere.However,I would suggest being cautious,removing them at night and using plenty of spray.
 
Ft. Lauderdale? Oh, sorry. I thought you meant White Anglo....:D
 
not sure, dont know if they'd still be in there. i threw a rock at a huge nest last winter which was partially full of bees. they dont do anything, they all just fall to the ground. but they were in there. maybe due to the temps of your house(being warm and all) they may still be alive. i'd approach it with a giant can of RAID. lol.
 
now is the time to do that because when they are cold the are dorment and they wont bother you they just kinda creep. that even if they are there. Ive crawled up in a tree in the winter time and pulled a fully loaded hornets nest out. when its cold thats the time to getem
 
The Gulf Coast of Florida.

Oh, wasps! I thought you meant WASPs. ;)
 
Do a web search for actual facts.

My memory of many NOVA and NATURE and similar TV programs is that YellowJackets (which are wasps - and VERY nasty wasps) hibernate underground. Some build theri nests underground.

I am home from work today dealing with the bees in the attic. Discovered when the electrician went into the attic to route new wiring. He's not sure if there is a full hive anywhere (he looked) but there is either a small hive squeezed in between the plywood roof and the roofing tiles or in a samll space in the wall (but all space should be filled with fiberglass insulation....). He sprayed bee killing pesticide dust and will be filling the entry/exit gap with foam after they have had time to fly out and die. He did say it could be a samll group that followed a queen to establisha new hive and they have not yet buit it yet.

Definitely NOT Africanized. Very docile (relatively speaking).

We have great weather for bees, wasps, hornets, and termites.

At least we don;t have Japanese YellowJackets. Look THEM up on the web.

Originally posted by huxley
I had some aluminum siding comes off from the over hang of my roof. There were wasp or yellow jackets nest inside my roof over the summer. They appear to be gone now that it is cold.

I'm wondering/afraid that they may have gone deeper into the roof to hibernate? I have to replace some sheetrock in my bathrooms ceiling, and don't want to disturb them!

I do live in the beehive state!? So where do they go in winter?

Thanks,
Pat
 
They probably are yellow jackets. We have had, in past, paper wasps that make the round cocoon shaped nest that are smooth all the way around, but the nests in my roof are flat and you can see each individual cell for the babies. There seems like no place where the adults can stay?

So when the critters are born, I really don't know where they go either - asumming they don't stay to take care of the nursery?

I don't have any critters to spray - because the nests are all empty? I just hope they're not in my roof. I'll get the roof fixed as soon as the snow comes off.

I will search the net more - thanks.

Pat
 
yellowjackets definately go into the ground,, I inadvertantly uncovered a hole in the landscaping and they came out like a shotgun, I got stung atleast a dozen times before I knew what happened.
 
I remmebr as a kid in Loomis CA, we had yellow jackets all over in the ground. Being ~ 12 years old AND having fire crackers...

(You see where this is going - don't you :)

We twisted about 4 Black cat wicks together, shoved them down the hole, lit it, ran like hell, heard the explosion, still running as fast as we could, felt one yellow jacket sting me over and over again on the back of my shoulder until I could smack him off. We were quite far away and the suckers still caught us!

My shoulder still tingles on that spot to this day when I have dealing with them!

Pat
 
We got a hive in our attic. They almost gone through the ceiling wallboard removing material. And since it is in the house... I can't do what I normally do with hives... blow it up ;).
 
Gotta be careful poisoning hives in the house. Depending on the biomass of the hive, it can smell really bad after a while. They did that at work once and that whole side of the bldg was uninhabitable for weeks. Apparently they couldn't dig it out of the wall or whatever.
 
I have had dealings with these critters before. They are vicious and mke VERY large hives sometimes. Be careful what you try to kill them with. My mom emptied a can of raid on them and it didn't even slow them down. She took care of them, though, let me assure you... I didn't ge to do the thing I desired to. Let's just say it involved fire and was permanent...

Often in the winter, the queen will find a hole and hibernate. The workers usually don't survive the winter except in warmer climates. As has been said, yellowjackets are aggressive, they are actually classified as hornets, and act just like any other hornet would.

I don't know what you would do to remove them from an attic. May I recommend the exterminator?
 
paintball guns and supersoakers make quite a show in the summer. its pretty cool. can you imagine being a bee and just chilling inside a hive, when all the sudden a huge liquid ball of paint the size of you comes flying through the wall at ballistic speeds!!?? that would be insane!
 
https://www.bees.ucr.edu/wasps/waspid.html
https://www.vespa-crabro.de/hornets.htm

OK, maybe hornets are considered part of the wasp family.....


Originally posted by Joshua
I have had dealings with these critters before. They are vicious and mke VERY large hives sometimes. Be careful what you try to kill them with. My mom emptied a can of raid on them and it didn't even slow them down. She took care of them, though, let me assure you... I didn't ge to do the thing I desired to. Let's just say it involved fire and was permanent...

Often in the winter, the queen will find a hole and hibernate. The workers usually don't survive the winter except in warmer climates. As has been said, yellowjackets are aggressive, they are actually classified as hornets, and act just like any other hornet would.

I don't know what you would do to remove them from an attic. May I recommend the exterminator?
 
Where do they go in the winter? My basement, of course. I've yet to find where they are coming in from [probably more than one place; my basement leaks like a sieve], but we see them hanging around the circuit breaker panel most of the year.

shreadvector - if they are the same thing you're talking about, we've got some Japanese Yellowjackets on our front porch. They're the roughly the same size as a B-29 AND are nocturnal. If you try to swat one of them, you better hope you stun it long enough to get in your car and run it over.
 
OK, maybe hornets are considered part of the wasp family..... [/B][/QUOTE]

Really depends on how you are defining family. In a strict taxonomic sense, not really. Hornets and yellow jackets are part of the same family (at least the ones we are referring to). But there are other wasps in other families. In the not so scientific sense all wasps, hornets, bees, ants etc are members of the same order (hymenoptera) and closely related so you could get away with saying same family. Unless you are talking to a biologist/entomologist type person.
 
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