How to take care of wasps in your eaves

Paper wasps in an eave of a St. Helena home

If you live pretty much anywhere in California but especially if you live the Bay Area or in the Napa Valley you deal with wasps in the eaves building their nests late spring/early summer. I’m writing this post and just saw a nest being built on a low eave at a termite inspection I was doing in St. Helena and took a great closeup (pictured above).

We get a fair amount of calls this year for wasps. The wasps pictured above are called paper wasps because the umbrella-shaped nests they create look like they’re made out of paper. The one positive thing about paper wasps is they are actually really docile and rarely sting so they’re considered a nuisance pest. They are quite large for wasps - about 1 inch - and can be scary looking but again really docile (I wouldn’t stick my hand in a nest though).

The other kind of wasps we deal with in eaves are called mud daubers, they create nests out of mud which look a little like small swallow nests. They also are pretty docile and rarely sting.

Both types of wasps are best dealt with in winter when the adults are gone (they die in the winter). You simply get a long pole and knock down the nest. If you want them gone while they are building their nest and the adults are active just be careful as the paper wasps do tend to get a little aggressive when defending their nest. Your best bet is to call a pro (hint, hint) when the adults are active. If you call us out, we’ll spray them down first to try and kill the adults right away and then knock down the nest(s).