[Salmo]

If you have a lot of wasps it is likely that a nest will be within 200 yards.

Stand near the nest and watch which line the wasps take, especially those leaving with full tummies. Move along their flight line and watch again and so on until you either get to the nest or they cross a bounary. If the latter then go the other side and watch them again. If the nest appears to be in someones garden knock on their door and tell them, they will be greatful, especially if you offer to destroy the nest.

Some Councils will come and destroy nests for free, others recommend a pest controller and there is a charge.

There are various powders sold in garden centres and chemists. There is also one that squirts about 10 feet like silly string and covers the entrance to the nest in foam - good for awkward places

Find the entrance to the hole. It will usually be in a bank or ditch and you can get at it and destroy it quite easily. If they are in a roof or a tree then it is may better to call a pest controller.

If it is covered in grass or in a bush you will need to cut/push this back so that you can get at the entrance. This will need to be done in late evening when the wasps are all inside (beware, they always leave a few guards near the entrance).

Go in late evening and tip the powder into the entrance. You can do this with a spoon on a long stick. It does not matter if some is scattered around the entrance. As the wasps go in and out next day they will pick up powder on their feet/bodies. Those going in will take the poison into the nest.

Activity in the nest should cease within 24 hours. Some people dig out the nest a few days later but it is not necessary.

[bravemurphy]

Unless they are really bothering me then I would leave them alone as they do a good job in the garden like taking the caterpillars off my brassica.

[8doubles]

Unless they are really bothering me then I would leave them alone as they do a good job in the garden like taking the caterpillars off my brassica.

Seconded ! 

They do a lot of good they are not given credit for !

[Salmo]

Unless they are really bothering me then I would leave them alone as they do a good job in the garden like taking the caterpillars off my brassica.

I agree 100% but after mid-Summer they turn from feeding on insects and carrion to feeding on sugar. When they jump into every jam sandwich and soft drink, indoors or out, devour your fruit and sting your children, you have to take action.

[Herb]

I agree 100% but after mid-Summer they turn from feeding on insects and carrion to feeding on sugar. When they jump into every jam sandwich and soft drink, indoors or out, devour your fruit and sting your children, you have to take action.

Is that not a bit extreme?

They are a minor annoyance to most people (barring allergies) - I spend a lot of time outdoors, and have only ever been stung 3 times - that means I am currently averaging one wasp sting every 10 years!

[Lincolnshire Floyd]

Is that not a bit extreme?

They are a minor annoyance to most people (barring allergies) - I spend a lot of time outdoors, and have only ever been stung 3 times - that means I am currently averaging one wasp sting every 10 years!

I agree with the OP. Wasp stings are a great deal worse than bee stings and take days to get over with a constant irritating itch after the initial pain. My wife can take bee stings all day long but if she gets stung by a wasp it's possibly a trip to A&E. The chemical in the sting is different.
You don't tend to see wasps a lot when they are carnivores but when they turn their attention later on in the year to sugar they are just about everywhere on our plums and can completely ruin a crop.
I've tried to suss out where the nests are but it's just about impossible as they seem to get drunk on the fermenting sugar they create by burrowing into the fruit and buzz about everywhere half cut. Not to mention that they sleep off their torpor inside the fruit and can catch a wary hand or lip unexpectedly.
You may think you are being extreme by trying to wipe them out but they are going to die anyway as they don't survive winter like bees. Only the Queen wasp has that task. So think more of it being an early euthanasia for the dratted things.

[bravemurphy]

I thought that if the queen dies they can all potentially be queens.

[Lincolnshire Floyd]

I thought that if the queen dies they can all potentially be queens.

Not with wasps to my knowledge. With bees if the queen dies they feed a worker grub with queen jelly to convert it to a queen but knowledgeable bee keepers will tell you that they are a poor excuse for a proper queen raised in a purpose made queen cell.
There's never more than one queen in a colony even though she lays a number of eggs. She will kill off any that are not needed for continuing the breeding cycle. Not sure if wasps only produce one queen or not. No doubt somebody will tell us.

[bravemurphy]

funny enough a huge honey bee (must have been the queen) just came crashing down in our garden we were waiting for the swarm but nothing so far.

[Lincolnshire Floyd]

funny enough a huge honey bee (must have been the queen) just came crashing down in our garden we were waiting for the swarm but nothing so far.

Honey bee queens are not huge in proportion to worker bees. They have a longer body that's all. That's why they are so difficult to identify in a colony and why bee keepers mark them with brightly coloured paint. It needs a practised eye to spot the elongated body.
The queen tends to swarm at least three feet from the ground because the swarm hangs downwards by a few feet in some cases.
Are you sure it was a honey bee and not a hornet? Hornets are less agile because of their size and could easily have made a crash landing. It's early for hornet though. They tend to be most active when the wasps are doing all the damage to your fruit and join in.

[bravemurphy]

thx for the info very interesting.

It was a very big brown bee not a bumble and not a hornet, it seemed ill.
 I let it climb on a cane and lifted it up in the air to see if it would fly, it did a little but then crashed down somewhere in next doors garden.

[seaside]

I have mixed feelings about wasps having spent a period in hospital when I was a young lad having fallen into a wasp's nest with some 60 stings. Since then, I have witnessed a past neighbour also spend time in hospital for trying to Molotov a nest in our shared boundary, but for burns.
Up a high ladder at the eaves of a house is also another place where you don't want to come across the odd wasp or two... they're very quick to send out a distress call.
They're a problem in beer gardens, but then so are the people often ... but apart from that they're beneficial, especially where growing food is concerned. I have never had a problem with them in my garden or up at the allotment.
Wood wasps, however, are quite a different thing, and of course, so are hornets.

[8doubles]

I have mixed feelings about wasps having spent a period in hospital when I was a young lad having fallen into a wasp's nest with some 60 stings. Since then, I have witnessed a past neighbour also spend time in hospital for trying to Molotov a nest in our shared boundary, but for burns.
Up a high ladder at the eaves of a house is also another place where you don't want to come across the odd wasp or two... they're very quick to send out a distress call.
They're a problem in beer gardens, but then so are the people often ... but apart from that they're beneficial, especially where growing food is concerned. I have never had a problem with them in my garden or up at the allotment.
Wood wasps, however, are quite a different thing, and of course, so are hornets.

Most stings are caused by scared humans batting at the wasp who is only out to find some food, if somebody at the beergarden table starts to freak and bat them in my direction i get rid of the person not the wasp ! 

[Sparkyrog]

Hornets tend to be shy and unlikely to cause problems

[JayG]

Agree with 8doubles - I don't know how much is down to luck but I've only ever been stung by wasps when on a camping holiday in France when in bare feet I stood on a few half-dead specimens on the groundsheet first thing in the morning. 

The Greek Island of Skopelos was a bit challenging too - I believe the island grows a lot of plums and they were even swarming on the beach and over the sea when we were there in late season.

Didn't get stung there but it takes a bit of nerve to ignore millions of the flippin' things!