A constipation curing moment...

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British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
Was knocking out a large wasps nest in a neighbours paddock today. Quite tussocky grass and a fist sized hole where a LOT of wasps were flying in and out of (they just bought this place and this is the fourth nest that I've had to deal with for them). The wasps were bothering one of their (very expensive) horses.

So we rearranged the electric fence to give me a working area and I wend back with net frames, insecticides shovels etc. (Oh and a bee suit!)

Peeled back the turf and the whole got a bit bigger. Probed it with spade and it got a bit bigger still. Wasps were not best chuffed at this point and a good few hundred came boiling out.

Treated the hole and the treatment just disappeared??

Poked the hole with the spade.....and the spade disappeared :eek:

Ended up digging away and found a vertical shaft about three of four foot deep.

Very weird - definitely not animal in origin. Not a well nor a borehole or cistern or septic tank. Just a vertical hole about 6" across that the turf had closed over and wasps had moved in.

Treated it with insecticide, filled it with hardcore and backfilled with soil and counted our lucky stars that a horse hadn't put a leg down the hole.

The only likely explanation I can think of is a telegraph / utility pole had been there at some point and been removed but not backfilled.

Real oddball thing to find though!
 

Clouston98

Woodsman & Beekeeper
Aug 19, 2013
4,364
2
25
Cumbria
Bloody hell! I hate those little gits, glad you managed to get rid of them. Telegraph pole sounds very possible, can't think it could've been anything else. :)
 

Ogri the trog

Mod
Mod
Apr 29, 2005
7,182
71
60
Mid Wales UK
I can attest to the longevity of unfilled telegraph pole holes - there are a couple in our fields, and they seem to swallow the rocks that I put into them after a while too - might be worth checking that one in a years time Hugh!

ATB

Ogri the trog

Wasps, you can keep em!
 

Macaroon

A bemused & bewildered
Jan 5, 2013
7,209
362
73
SE Wales
Every Horsemaster's worst nightmare............I shudder to think of the consequences of that!
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
Grand Prix horses too Mac (or as I said to their owner "very expensive lasagne's on the hoof" :))

Thanks for the tip Pete - I put about a dozen bricks and a load of top soil down the hole - worth watching though as you say!
 

feralpig

Forager
Aug 6, 2013
183
1
Mid Wales
Telegraph pole, or an old post hole. Possibly, the wasps had munched the last of the rotten wood, basically why they made their home there in the first place.
Wonder if the reason for so many wasp nests, is the handy little homes from an old fence?
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
Nah, reason for so many wasps is stupid townies (previous owners) who shouldn't be allowed to own land. No proper stewardship and didn't take proper care of the land and allowed rampant vermin :( I've knocked out wasp nests in the dykes, in the loft - all over. Silly little people who didn't know (or more likely didn't care) enough to deal with these things.
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
They do indeed - and when allowed to prosper and thrive they produce multiple new queens and make many new nests the following year, not just one :rolleyes:
 

feralpig

Forager
Aug 6, 2013
183
1
Mid Wales
Oh.... That has got me thinking....
I wonder if those two little nests, hanging from my shed ceiling, contain a queen, ready for next year?
I presumed they had started building a nest, then cleared off when the swallows moved in, coz they felt a bit like dinner.
I'll pull then down and burn them anyhow. Can't stand wasps. especially in a shed.
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
They wont be new nests - all wasps die before Winter except queens. They over winter in log piles and sheds and the ones that survive start a new nest in the spring. One nest "left alone" can breed a thousand queens for next year. Most die over winter and wasps aren't always a bad thing - they are insectivorous and eat other bitey things - but you don't want twenty nests round livestock or houses.
 

slowworm

Full Member
May 8, 2008
1,982
934
Devon
Whilst I can understand controlling wasps near houses (especially if someone there reacts badly) and near bees etc they do do a large amount of good by eating pests such as caterpillars in the spring and summer. I note many people haven't seen many wasps about this year and we've certainly seen far fewer.

What sort of harm do they do to livestock?
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
These were boiling out of the entrance and attacking the horses when the horses came near slowworm (the field had been kept as a hay meadow - for which read "couldn't be ar**d to cut it) previously.

If they were in a nest in a wood well away from people, I'd have left them alone, but in a paddock, adjoining a garden, in a loft? The have to go - particularly as one of the owners is allergic to wasp (but not bee) stings.
 

david1

Nomad
Mar 3, 2006
482
0
sussex
Im not keen on wasps, but they come in different styles of anger. this year I found a wasp nest in a box near my back door it was the size of a small football they were quite nice and not the angry type, even so I felt the need to destroy the nest. But what surprised me was how a nest could be so big and so close without me noticing it. all down to how passive this nest was their not all bad
 

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