How Do You Get Rid of a Wasp Nest? The Safe Way on Long Island

The nest tells you what you are dealing with. An open, umbrella shaped comb with no paper covering, hanging under an eave or railing, is a paper wasp nest. Cornell describes these as single layer combs with colonies of a few dozen females, and Kentucky's fact sheet says paper wasps are not very aggressive.

A gray, football shaped paper ball in a tree or on a building is a bald-faced hornet nest. Penn State points out it is not a true hornet; it is a yellowjacket, with 100 to 400 workers, and Clemson notes it can squirt venom from the stinger into the eyes of nest intruders.

A hole in the ground, a gap in siding, or a crack in a foundation with a steady stream of half inch yellow and black wasps is a yellowjacket colony. Cornell says these nest in voids like structural walls and abandoned animal burrows, and Ohio State puts a ground colony at 4,000 to 5,000 workers by late summer.

A large reddish brown wasp flying at your porch light after dark is a European hornet. Ohio State says it flies at night, is attracted to light, and nests in hollow trees and wall voids.

At night. The University of Kentucky's guidance is that treatment should be performed at night when most of the yellowjackets are in the nest and less active. Treat at midday and a large share of the colony is out foraging, comes home to a disturbed nest, and finds you.

If you need light, make it red. Penn State says most stinging insects have difficulty seeing red, so a red light or a red filter helps keep them in the dark. A flashlight with red cellophane over the lens works.

Only if it is a small exposed paper wasp nest you can reach from the ground, and nobody in the house is allergic. Aerosol wasp products are designed for this; Penn State says most can spray 15 to 20 feet, which is the whole point. Stand at the full distance, treat at night, and follow the label, which federal law (7 U.S.C. 136j) requires of everyone, homeowners included.

The four to leave alone: bald-faced hornet nests, yellowjacket ground nests, anything inside a wall or attic, and any nest where a household member carries an epinephrine injector. Kentucky's fact sheet also warns against the folk remedies: dousing nests with gasoline or a garden hose is seldom successful and can result in multiple stings.

Because a trapped colony chews its way out, and the way out is often into your house. Penn State's German yellowjacket page says it plainly: if the yellowjackets cannot exit the nest, they may chew through interior wall coverings in an attempt to escape and enter indoor living spaces. University of Minnesota says do not seal the nest opening until you know all of the yellowjackets are dead.

The same logic says do not spray a wall nest from inside the house. You push the colony toward the living space instead of away from it. Wall and ground nests get an insecticide dust at the entrance; Penn State explains that the yellowjackets track the dust into the nest as they enter. Entrance open, dust at the door, colony carries it home.

Identify the nest. Paper wasp, bald-faced hornet, yellowjacket, or European hornet, and whether it is exposed, in the ground, or in a void.

Treat at the right time with the right product. Aerosol for exposed nests, dust at the entrance for ground and void nests, applied when the colony is inside.

Leave the entrance open until the colony is dead. Then, for exposed nests, we remove the nest. For void nests, sealing happens only after activity has stopped.

Written 6-month guarantee. Wasp and hornet nest removal carries a 6-month written guarantee. If the same nest reactivates within 6 months, we come back at no charge.

Almost never. Penn State says the bald-faced hornet colony dies before or shortly after the first hard frost, and Maryland Extension explains that only a handful of fertilized queens overwinter, starting a new nest from scratch each spring. Maryland and Kentucky both say old nests are not reused, though Ohio State notes a nest is occasionally reused by another queen. What does happen is a new queen picking the same sheltered eave or the same foundation gap next May, because the spot is still good.

Late summer is when this matters most. Ohio State says that in August through October yellowjacket food preferences change from proteins to sweets, which is why they show up at every outdoor meal and every open soda can.

Take away the spots. Seal gaps in siding, soffits, and foundation walls before spring, cap vents with screen, and fix the torn window screen the yellowjackets used last year. Keep garbage cans lidded and rinse recycling, since sugar and protein are what draw late summer foragers. Walk the eaves in May and knock down the golf ball sized paper wasp starts while the queen is working alone; Penn State says queens establish nests in May, and a nest with one wasp is a very different job from a nest with a hundred.