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!!wasps!! In Lofts


Guest ian@apex network

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A few years ago I was in Yorkshire fitting a system in a bungalow...

Perhaps I should have taken more notice of a few dead wasps on the loft floor, but I didn't...I just got on with the job.

Anyway, it was one of those bungalows with a very low roof-line. The roof trusses were plentyful, and I had to thread myself through them several times as I ran the various cables to the pir's and windows.

When it came to the bellbox, there was a low apex over the front door. It was the highest point on the bungalow.

The inside of the apex was really difficult to get to, but I had a look to see if there was any timberwork or other items I would need to avoid as I had decided to drill from the outside in.

So, hole through...thread cable through from outside. My plan was to tape the end of the wire I threaded through, to the end of a cable fed direct from the panel, and pull it back through from the outside.

I set about my "Krypton Factor" assault course route through the roof trusses, firmly keeping hold of the end of the cable from the panel. I was sliding and wriggling along like a snake on my front. My inspection lamp in one hand, and the cable in the other. I had a roll of insulation tape in my mouth!

Eventually, I got to the apex, found the end of the wire I threaded through from the outside, and taped it to the cable I had dragged through the loft.

To reverse back along the loft, I considered it better to turn over and lie on my back.

***SHOCK***

A wasps nest was inches from my face. I was trapped. There was no quick escape - it had taken me several minutes to get to that point, and it would take me just as long to get out!

A few wasps started to take an interest in my light. I turned it off. Pitch black...with "things" buzzing around my head.

I started to slide back out of the loft in the dark. My eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness and I could see a little from the light which was shining through the loft opening. It was a long journey though.

Soon I had escaped! ALL I had to do was pull the cable through the wall from the outside.

You know what happened....yeah, the cable snagged. I pulled too hard and the insulation tape gave way. I pulled my original cable back through the wall, and left the end of the cable from the panel somewhere in the wall cavity!

I had to make a return journey - but this time I KNEW I was entering a wasps nest - at least the first time I was blissfully unaware!

I HATE wasps with a passion!

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got to be cautious about creature's in lofts thats for sure, how they get on in Australia and the like with funnel webs, snakes and other nasties goodness knows :cold2:

i work alone, so a tip abut cabling the bell in that low roof situation, i use fiber glass cable access rods (screwfix and others) worth every penny trust me.

obviously check for water tanks, pipes and cables etc first, which you can often do from the trap door with a decent torch.

an aside here, those led head torch's are an excellent tool for working lofts, had for about

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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got to be cautious about creature's in lofts thats for sure, how they get on in Australia and the like with funnel webs, snakes and other nasties goodness knows :cold2:

i work alone, so a tip abut cabling the bell in that low roof situation, i use fiber glass cable access rods (screwfix and others) worth every penny trust me.

obviously check for water tanks, pipes and cables etc first, which you can often do from the trap door with a decent torch.

an aside here, those led head torch's are an excellent tool for working lofts, had for about

If at first you don't succeed...don't try skydiving!

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  • 2 months later...
I am a beekeeper and have honeybees PLEASE do not cunfuse them with wasps. Thanks.

I have to ask......... how would a thick city boy like me know the difference. To me Bees are fat and furry, Wasps are thinner. bet thats not the whole story though is it ?

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I have to ask......... how would a thick city boy like me know the difference. To me Bees are fat and furry, Wasps are thinner. bet thats not the whole story though is it ?

Bit like my mouse with wings ......watch out Roy cropper

Cant believe this threads spreads 2 years

muz

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Wasps are yellow and black

Honeybees are orange and black (mainly)

hitit:oops::lol:

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become old. Why rush to end life when happiness is in the blissfulness of childhood innocence."

"We all die, the goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

07475071344

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just finished a big install yesterday i was working in the first and was happily waiting for a 8 core to be poked up when i herd a buzzing behind me, look round to see possibly the biggest wasp i have ever seen buzzing around my wonder light. needless to say got out pretty quick.

now the confession about an hour later got my trainee to go up and clip the cable and retrive the light (no mention of the killer wasp). needless to say whilst wiring the panel i hear a rather girly scream as he jumps out the loft screaming there is a massive wasp up there. Got the light and cables cliped though.

NSI GOLD

BASED IN KENT

INTRUDER,ACCESS CONTROL,CCTV,FIRE

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nowt to do with alarm system more electricity, was wiring a fused spur in an airing cupboard in a ladies house 2 weeks back and happily connecting the shower pump cable up when i heard a buzzing go round the side and back of my head, looked up wards and to my horror this huge wasp/hornet was flying directly towards me at lightning speed :lol: needless to say i didnt stay there i jump up ducked under the ladders got to the top of the stairs and this wasp / hornet was hovering above the b****y stairs i shouted a few choice words at it and it flew up onto the light fitting, now this is the funny part the stairs became a spring board jumped down the stairs and informed the home owner that she needed to get rid of that flying insect before any further could be carried out, so off she trots wasp spray in 1 hand and fly swatter :lol: in other 5 minutes later down she came with a rather flat and sorry looking thing stuck to the fly swatter.

never been so scared in all my life, ps this was a true incident from a couple of weeks ago while carrying out a consumer unit upgrade and shower cable replacement job in the local area.

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become old. Why rush to end life when happiness is in the blissfulness of childhood innocence."

"We all die, the goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

07475071344

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  • 1 month later...

I hate wasps , and do my utmost to avoid them, however top tip , if you see an old wasps nest in a loft , or your own loft , leave it alone, as they never build a nest in a site where there has been one previously, simirlarly if you are worried about wasps targeting your house , you can actually buy imitation wasps nests, if you hang one of these up by the eaves of your house , bingo you will not be troubled. :)

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Guest RJBsec
I hate wasps , and do my utmost to avoid them, however top tip , if you see an old wasps nest in a loft , or your own loft , leave it alone, as they never build a nest in a site where there has been one previously, simirlarly if you are worried about wasps targeting your house , you can actually buy imitation wasps nests, if you hang one of these up by the eaves of your house , bingo you will not be troubled. :)

Interesting - anyone else seen more than on nest in a loft?

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Hi All, Many years ago when living in Telford my son and I used to take our dog out for a walk-he at the time only being 12 or so-And we had a certain 'bench' we were used to sitting on and exercising the dog.

The 'bench' was very well used-we went there near enough every night to throw sticks etc for our pooch.

To break up the monotony of playing 'fetch' every night with the dog my son, Sam, decided to bring a football along and practice his skills-Good idea I thought 'save him getting bored'.

We had been down the 'bench' on numerous occasions playing with the dog and the football prior to the night that forced us to stay away for a long time!.

Picture this-A lovely summers evening-nice and warm-the dogs running around-Sams got a stick as kids do and is walloping the football-what can go wrong!.

Doggy chases ball into an unserspecting hedge thing, and it disappears underneath-dog does then what most dogs do-gives up and goes to smell other dogs 'left behinds'.

Meanwhile whilst I am sitting quite contented reading the newspaper on the 'bench', my son, Sam decides to locate the ball in the hedge with a stick.

I recall him saying "come on if you think your hard enough"-as he rummaged around under this hedge with his stick-attempting to located the dogs ball.

I still can't quite believe what happened next, and it still to this day sets my hairs on edge when I think about it.

Whilst reading the newspaper I became semi-aware of some sort of not natural disturbance in the near vicinity-Sam sort of ran towards me muttering various things-which wasn't unusual for him anyway!, then the mutterings turned into shouts and very quickly then into screams-all this happened within about 10 seconds and when I looked towards him there was a 'cloud' following.

The bees under the hedge that he had disturbed were well pi**ed off-I grabbed discarded chip wrappers etc and tried to beat the buggers away-but they kept on coming-we ran about 1/4 mile up the road and they followed us-when eventually we thought we had cleared them I tore Sams T-shirt off-cos he was screaming-there were bees all under it-he had been stung about 50 times, and me around 30.

I will never forget that night-when we dragged ourselves home my wife couldn't believe the stings on us both.

Sam is now 16-but I only have to say 'come on if you think your hard enough' and it takes him and me right back to that night many years ago-scary or what !!.

We are now living in North Wales but do return to Telford to do rewires etc-last time we went he had to go to see if the 'bench' was still there-sadly or not possibly! it has been removed.

Richard.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Managed to pull a bell wire through a large pink (assume wasps not bees) nest once (it was winter). The owner had stored newspapers in the loft, financial times among others. I thought all the workers were boys.

Do they die or do they hibernate?

And I have another question.

Few months ago during fire alarm service, one detector had dead wasp in base. They had eaten through fire rated foam. Why do they like the foam?

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Managed to pull a bell wire through a large pink (assume wasps not bees) nest once (it was winter). The owner had stored newspapers in the loft, financial times among others. I thought all the workers were boys.

Do they die or do they hibernate?

And I have another question.

Few months ago during fire alarm service, one detector had dead wasp in base. They had eaten through fire rated foam. Why do they like the foam?

they think is old fashion beer - with a good head on it :)

i think it is similar in texture to wood and confuses them, so they take some of it for the nest.

regs

alan

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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RE: Foam

they think is old fashion beer - with a good head on it :)

i think it is similar in texture to wood and confuses them, so they take some of it for the nest.

regs

alan

No wonder "she who must be obeyed" chooses the furniture. :unsure:

I did an install couple of years back and there were bees (think the guy said "mortar bees" - not kidding), that lived in the cavity wall, and had no sting. smaller than normal bees or wasps.

Any ideas?

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According to the new building regs (document bee) 1 hr fire resistance is required in all hives over 2 levels with an occupancy over 400

Is there a spare seat in that taxi satsuma?

C.

:no:

im using the whole seat,

:lol:

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become old. Why rush to end life when happiness is in the blissfulness of childhood innocence."

"We all die, the goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

07475071344

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  • 2 months later...
I hate wasps , and do my utmost to avoid them, however top tip , if you see an old wasps nest in a loft , or your own loft , leave it alone, as they never build a nest in a site where there has been one previously, simirlarly if you are worried about wasps targeting your house , you can actually buy imitation wasps nests, if you hang one of these up by the eaves of your house , bingo you will not be troubled. :)

Not strictly true, regardless of whether there is a nest there or not, if your property has had a wasp nest and is in "flight path" there is a possibility it will always be targetted, and god knows how this works but every next generation of wasp will know where your property is.

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i wonder, would those cans of test smoke be effective against wasps? otherwise its the vans fire extinguisher for me.

regs

alan

Probably not great for the carbon footprint but a couple of CO2 extinguishers worked great on the wasp nest we had. They all fell asleep, the returning wasps stayed away then the nest was abandoned. That was 2006 and had no return visits.

C.

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Probably not great for the carbon footprint but a couple of CO2 extinguishers worked great on the wasp nest we had. They all fell asleep, the returning wasps stayed away then the nest was abandoned. That was 2006 and had no return visits.

C.

did you leave the co2 up there

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become old. Why rush to end life when happiness is in the blissfulness of childhood innocence."

"We all die, the goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

07475071344

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I slowly emptied them into the nest entrance one after the other (probably 30secs in total) and that was it.

I assume they died via lack of O2 and those returning to the nest could smell death, lol.

C.

You murderer :lol::D

Wasps are evil little things.

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  • 7 months later...
A few years ago I was in Yorkshire fitting a system in a bungalow...

Perhaps I should have taken more notice of a few dead wasps on the loft floor, but I didn't...I just got on with the job.

Anyway, it was one of those bungalows with a very low roof-line. The roof trusses were plentyful, and I had to thread myself through them several times as I ran the various cables to the pir's and windows.

When it came to the bellbox, there was a low apex over the front door. It was the highest point on the bungalow.

The inside of the apex was really difficult to get to, but I had a look to see if there was any timberwork or other items I would need to avoid as I had decided to drill from the outside in.

So, hole through...thread cable through from outside. My plan was to tape the end of the wire I threaded through, to the end of a cable fed direct from the panel, and pull it back through from the outside.

I set about my "Krypton Factor" assault course route through the roof trusses, firmly keeping hold of the end of the cable from the panel. I was sliding and wriggling along like a snake on my front. My inspection lamp in one hand, and the cable in the other. I had a roll of insulation tape in my mouth!

Eventually, I got to the apex, found the end of the wire I threaded through from the outside, and taped it to the cable I had dragged through the loft.

To reverse back along the loft, I considered it better to turn over and lie on my back.

***SHOCK***

A wasps nest was inches from my face. I was trapped. There was no quick escape - it had taken me several minutes to get to that point, and it would take me just as long to get out!

A few wasps started to take an interest in my light. I turned it off. Pitch black...with "things" buzzing around my head.

I started to slide back out of the loft in the dark. My eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness and I could see a little from the light which was shining through the loft opening. It was a long journey though.

Soon I had escaped! ALL I had to do was pull the cable through the wall from the outside.

You know what happened....yeah, the cable snagged. I pulled too hard and the insulation tape gave way. I pulled my original cable back through the wall, and left the end of the cable from the panel somewhere in the wall cavity!

I had to make a return journey - but this time I KNEW I was entering a wasps nest - at least the first time I was blissfully unaware!

I HATE wasps with a passion!

Im shivering Now thinking of being in your shoes, Ive not yet in my time encountered any wasps in lofts

and after reading that will always listen and inspect the loft for any signs of wasps

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