We have found three solitary wasp nests in our house, brown tube-like structures which are very hard. When you break them open they are full of small spiders.
Apparently the wasps make their nests from mud and paralyze the spiders to provide food for their larvae.
We have had one nest in a bookcase, one in our french doors and the other one in some wrapping paper.
We have been here for four years and this is the first time we have had this problem.
Has anyone else had these creatures in their houses?
Our wasps are large dark brown with a very distinctive tiny waist.
Be sure of what it is you're killing, before you kill it. Kill off a nest of bees of any kind, and you will have made a huge mistake.
We seem to spend most of our time ensuring they can get in and out of the house. Fascinating creatures but I do wish they wouldn't drop their little balls of clay en route to their brood cell. They dry out very quickly and are quite painful to stand on in bare feet!
Just broke one open and not only did I find the parylyzed spiders referred to but what is probably the remains of a juvenile wasp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sceliphron_curvatum
Celia, I suspect you are thinking of paper wasps, which do make small nests, and aggressively defend them. the potter wasp is solitary, and doesn't really bother anyone.
I once had a tiny nest in the door space of my car.
I go missing for a couple of days and they're in......... Behind books for the third year in a row.
Potter wasps. I think they're charming - never been stung by one, or heard of anyone else being stung by one, either. Clever little buggers, and interesting to watch.
Dont fret Shirely...I am Spring cleaning today...(first day its been cool enough to clean!) and I am going through our huge house...with 9 bookcases and somewhere in the region of 40 pictures and mirrors..and havent found one! just a small waspnest outside....maybe because I have windows open always...and everywere in our place is windy!
Raid works very well! I haven't seen any around here since mid July.
I spend at least aday a year searching the house and outside for the little buggers last year we evenhad one on the washing line under the cover when we cae back from a break
Hi Jane, I wrote a blog about potter wasps a couple of years ago: http://wouterpamela.blogspot.fr/search?q=potter+wasps
we had this one making 'pots' at the top of our wheelchair ramp. A few weeks ago we put up some cane window blinds for our guest bedrooms, and within a couple of days I found some small pots stuck to several of the canes! We also have wasps making lovely pots in the shed - they are so beautiful that we don't really want to get rid of them, but I am also allergic to wasp stings so must be careful. Would be interesting to see which category/family your insects fall into - wasps or sceliphron.
We have just, this morning moved and destroyed a small wasp nests...maybe 10 tubes by one of the doors in the bedroom....yuk!
Snap! Always behind pictures in this house, as many as three nests behind one small picture.
Hi Jane, Not in the house, but in the car! The first was just under the lip of the boot lid, the second in the space below the door lock of the driver's door! In the first case the car had been unused for several days, but in the second it started within 24 hours, as I went to the car I could see the wasp going into the space between the door and the car body, and when I checked, several cells had already been created, like a honeycomb! Little blighters is about right!
Since both I, and more dangerously, my dog - she swells up more than I do - suffer anaphylactic reactions to wasp stings I'm afraid we nuke the nests wherever we find them.
Don't like to kill anything as a rule, but these wasps are a real pain in all ways! Plus they attack without provocation.
They go in drawers too and I've found them behind pictures, anywhere that's dark and wind free apparently.
We have also found one in a wrapped up blind!
Our friend has a nest outside her kitchen door, but at least it is outside.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sceliphron_curvatum
This is the little blighter! We have them too. They love bookcases,books and shoe boxes.