They only occasionally enter houses so if there is increased hornet activity around your home or business, call a professional pest controller for advice. Twice the size of a wasp with brown and yellow markings, the European Hornet is not a common sight. You can find a BPCA member, local to you, using our Find a pest controller tool.Ġ1332 294 288 Hornets European hornets (Vespa crabro) If you need further help with identifying a buzzing insect, you can contact a BPCA member near you. They have the expertise and equipment to do the job safely. That’s why we can only recommend using a properly trained and qualified BPCA member company. Wasps have the potential to hurt you if their nest is disturbed. Wasps should only be treated if they pose a risk to public health and safety. Wasp stings are at best painful, and at worst fatal - they can send you into anaphylaxis.

Wasps will usually only attack a person if they feel threatened – and may call for back up! Wasps can emit a pheromone that sends nearby colony members into a defensive, stinging frenzy.

They make football-sized nests in the ground or in roofs and trees, which they abandon after the summer and don’t return to the following year. Common wasps generally have an ‘anchor’ shaped black marking on the front of their face, while German wasps have either an incomplete version of this, or three distinctive black dots on yellow.īoth species are social and have a single queen who produces 3,000 to 8,000 workers. These two species are almost identical, but you can tell them apart by their facial and thorax markings. Unlike bees, wasps do not die after one sting, they can, and will, sting you quite a few times! This could cause them to sting you and others as they defend their nest resulting in multiple stings. Wasps inside the nest will feel threatened and often become aggressive. Treating a wasp nest can be very dangerous. Pest wasps Common wasp (Vespula vulgaris) and German wasp (Vespula germanica) This handy guide helps you identify if your buzzing visitors are a pest and whether you should call in professional help. And while you might see headlines about the ‘murder hornet’ you’re almost definitely not going to see one in your back garden.īut some wasps and hornets can be a public health risk if they are in the wrong place. There are thousands of species of buzzing insects, and the majority are not classed as a pest.

These fascinating insects are incredibly useful not just in the garden, but also in agriculture, with many crops dependent on pollination. Everything that buzzes around your garden is potentially a pollinator.

Hornet skinny