Wasps. We take them as the worse cousins of bees, revengeful a**holes which have the sole purpose of stinging, killing and horror us at first glance.

Well, Winter is almost here, and those little buggers try to find every nick and crevice to hide during the colder months. It turns out wasp queens may be hiding inside your home, and you wouldn’t even realise it. Scary!

This poses a problem because there can be many wasps hiding from the cold inside your home. If you take any actions by yourself this could potentially be harmful to you and your health, so we recommend calling insured professionals to deal with such matters.

This sometimes may mean removing a wasp nest or inspecting to see if there is a problem to worry about. Anyways, let’s see what wasps do during the Australian winter.

Wasps During The Winter Months

Like most insects, wasps don’t like winter. The misconceptions surrounding the stinging bugs are many, and Fantastic Pest Control is here to bust them. So let’s answer all the important questions about wasps in the winter!

Where do wasps go in the winter?

Wasps hibernate. To be exact, the queen wasp hibernates, ordinary wasps just die. Once the weather warms up, the queen wasp emerges from her long slumber and the first things she does are finding food and scouting for a place to build her next nest.

In the winter months, wasp queens can be hibernating anywhere from inside your property, to crevices in trees and rocks. The only thing needed is the place to be warm enough for them to hibernate and not freeze to death. Most of the times you won’t even notice they are there unless we’re blessed with nice winter weather.

Once the temperatures rise, you may find a wasp trying to navigate around your house. They are often slow, disorientated and easy to catch (or hit).

A single wasp won’t do you harm so you can try to safely catch it, and release it outside. However, be careful because they are still capable of stinging when handled.

Do wasps die off in the winter?

Yes, and no. As we mentioned, ordinary wasps die when the winter comes. However, wasps don’t freeze to death. They starve to death. Because of the lack of food in the winter, they are incapable of surviving.

However, queen wasps hibernate. They can spend the whole winter into hibernation and once the weather warms up again they go out on a mission to build a new hive (hopefully away from your property).

Queens are perfectly capable to hibernate through the harsh winter months. In fact, warm winters are bad for them, because queen wasps get out of their hibernating spots fooled that winter has ended.

When they search for food, flowers aren’t flowering and they starve to death, as there isn’t sufficient nutrition.

Can I safely remove a wasp nest in the winter?

We suggest you don’t remove a wasp nest by yourself even if it’s in the winter. You never know if there are any living wasps still in there. The potential for you to harm yourself is huge, so we suggest you contact a professional to the job for you.

Burning the nest with fire is a big no-no! If there are any leftover wasps, then it would be extremely dangerous, as wasps tend to get violent when their nest is threatened. There are cases of people dying from wasp attacks.

Request a professional to come and inspect the nest, he can determine if it’s safe to handle. This way everything will be disposed of accordingly as well.

Do wasps hibernate in houses?

Sometimes they do! Depends on what the queen wasp finds suitable for her hibernating place.

Most of the times house owners aren’t disturbed by hibernating wasps. They find crevices somewhere outside the house that is warm enough and spends the winter in it.

Of course, there are cases where the wasp queen finds herself inside our properties. They can once again hibernate in places that we don’t see personally, or choose a place such as our curtains.

It’s rare, but when you find a hibernating wasp you can easily kill it. In fact, we recommend you do so, as once it wakes from its long slumber the queen may find your house, or somewhere around your property, as the perfect place to build her next wasp nest.

The post Where Wasps Go in the Winter and How You Can Protect Yourself and Your Property appeared first on Fantastic Pest Control Melbourne Blog.