These are at the front door – are they dangerous?

Posted by SoftAncient2753

16 Comments

  1. Hold a lighter infront of an aerosol can and give them a blast. Not long enough to start a fire but will burn their wings off so you can safely remove the nest.

  2. They are stick nest brown paper wasps (Ropalidia revolutionalis). They are way more docile than their umbrella shaped nest making paper wasps friends. The fact you got that close to take a picture isn’t something you can do with the other guys.

    If you have to get rid of them (they are great little garden helpers) then insect spray at night. However, seeing as they only sting if threatened, if they aren’t in an area that sees heavy traffic or you’re not going to brush up against them – you can just leave them.

    We have several nests right next to our verandah. They don’t care about what we do including mowing right under them and the kids running around being silly.

  3. ArachnidSalt2664 on

    We had a nest of these guy on our balcony..

    One sunny day my son walked outside to his outdoor kitchen area to have a play and before I knew it he had let in a whole colony of wasps – as they chased him away from their nest…

    Not a fun time. He got attacked pretty badly and took ages to vacuum up the wasps in the house 🤣🤣.

    All he did was walk past the nest too.. we didn’t even know it was there.

    I’d move the nest or disrupt them to move on, wasps close to doors is not a risk I would personally take again!

  4. ConcreteBurger on

    I’ve had a couple of colonies of these guys, with the most recent one hanging off a trellis between my shed and a retaining wall (about a 40-50cm gap between the two). I often walk between that gap, whipper snip and pretty frequently bump the trellis accidentally. The worst i’ve gotten is a stern look from one of the wasps but have yet to be stung. This is the second colony of stick nest wasps i’ve had. The first colony I had had built it’s nest in amongst a passion fruit vine. They didn’t mind when i was plucking passionfruits off and shaking the whole damn vine. They’re pretty docile and a helpful pollinator/pest deterrent.

  5. They leave you alone until you brush them and then they go for the head.
    C$nts of things! 😆

  6. We had these on a similar leaf but didn’t know about it until bumping the leaf with the lawn mower. Ended with a lot of bites and a lot of swearing.

  7. Whenever this question comes up someone always says how harmless these guys are. And yes I mean these guys and not the ‘umbrella nest’ ones. Fact is I have been swarmed, and stung, when walking close to them. I guess that means they felt threatened.

    By all means have them in your garden but DON’T have them close to where people walk.

  8. If you do choose to remove them at night you can use a red light as a torch as they cannot see it, so they will still be in pitch blackness but you can see what you are doing. 👍
    Looks like its ona plant, if you are game/careful enough you could just snip the whole.leaf off and move them a safer distance from your door. They will likely abandon the nest and try agai, but better than killin em.✌️