Species guide
Paper Wasp Nests: What They Are and What to Do
The grey umbrella under your eave belongs to a short lived colony that spends its days hunting caterpillars. Here is how it works, when it earns a treatment, and how to deal with one that does.
One season, one stalk, a few dozen cells. This colony is smaller and calmer than its reputation.
A paper wasp nest is the only wasp colony most Melbourne households will ever actually see, because the species hangs its work in plain air rather than burying it. By late January the combs are obvious along eave lines, under pergola beams and inside shrubs, and the phone calls start.
What follows is the species itself rather than the generic advice: how a colony begins and how long it lasts, what the wasps spend their day doing, why the same corner of the house gets chosen year after year, and where the honest line sits between a nest worth leaving and a nest worth dealing with. It belongs with the other pest guides Tim has written, and it assumes you have already worked out that the thing you are looking at is made of paper rather than clay.
The colony
What is a paper wasp nest, and how long does it last?
It is a single season colony, built from chewed plant fibre by one mated queen and extended by her own daughters. She starts it alone in spring, the first workers hatch within weeks and take over the foraging, and the whole thing is finished by the cold. No comb is ever used twice.
That lifespan explains a lot of the behaviour people find confusing. In November a comb may hold a handful of cells and one insect. By the back half of summer the same stalk carries a few dozen cells and a crew working in shifts. By May it is abandoned, and the only part of the colony that survives is a batch of mated queens tucked under bark, behind a loose weatherboard or in a crevice somewhere, waiting out the winter alone.
The insect itself is worth learning properly, because the whole treatment decision rests on getting the species right. A paper wasp is noticeably longer and thinner than a European wasp, with antennae that are orange-brown rather than solid black, and it flies with its back legs hanging below the body. It drifts rather than darts, and it hovers, which European wasps generally do not.
Scraped off weathered timber and dead stems, mixed with saliva and dried into a thin grey board.
A busy comb at peak might hold a few dozen adults. Nothing on the scale of an enclosed colony.
Chewed up and carried back to the grubs. The adults themselves take nectar and sap.
Hovering low over planting and around a dripping tap or pond edge, rather than on your plate.
The caterpillar habit matters for the decision later on. These are predators working your garden for free, which is why official Victorian advice treats native wasps as beneficial and recommends leaving a nest alone when it is safely out of reach. The exception named in the same advice is the one this page is about: a nest close to a house, which may be defended if the colony feels threatened.
The decision
Should you remove a paper wasp nest or leave it?
Three questions settle it: how often somebody passes within arm's reach of the comb, whether anybody at the address reacts badly to stings, and whether the spot is one that gets bumped. A yes to any of them means dealing with it. Three noes mean the sensible answer is to watch it and let autumn take care of the rest.
Size is a poor guide and people lean on it anyway. A comb the width of a fifty cent piece above the back step is more likely to cause trouble than a side plate sized one four metres up a boundary tree, because the first one is within reach of a head and the second is not.
Getting bumped is the part people underestimate. The comb hangs from one slim stalk, so anything that shakes the surface it is attached to reads as an attack to the colony. The usual culprits are a roller door, a gate that slams, a shade sail being wound in, a clothesline being spun, and a hedge trimmer going into a shrub blind.
- Deal with it if the comb is above a door, a step, a path, a washing line, a sandpit or an outdoor table.
- Deal with it if somebody at the address has had a bad reaction to any sting, whatever the nest's position.
- Deal with it if the comb is inside a hedge you prune, a shutter box or a hollow rail where you cannot see all of it.
- Leave it if the comb is high, out at a boundary, and nobody has a reason to go near that spot before winter.
Stings are worth being plain about rather than dramatic. The colony ignores somebody walking past and reacts inside roughly a metre of the comb, and because a wasp can withdraw its sting and use it again, one disturbance is not one sting. Ordinary pain and swelling settle within a couple of days, but breathing trouble, swelling away from the sting site, dizziness or a sting in the mouth all need urgent help, and the Better Health Channel is the place to read what a serious reaction looks like.
If you do it yourself
How do you deal with a small comb at dusk?
Wait until the light has gone, when the whole colony is home and barely moving, then treat the comb from the ground with everything already in position. Dusk is doing most of the work here. The same job attempted at two in the afternoon leaves half the workers in the air behind you and gives them a target.
This only applies to a comb you can reach with both feet flat on the ground, on a nest you have positively identified as paper wasps. Anything that needs a ladder, anything partly inside a cavity and anything you are unsure about is the other category, and the section below covers it.
- Set up in daylightWalk the route, clear the ground beneath, decide where you will stand and where you will walk to.
- Cover up and waitLong sleeves into gloves, trousers into socks, closed shoes, eye protection. Then wait for proper dark.
- Treat and withdrawApply from as far back as the product allows, straight at the comb, then leave the area immediately.
- Come back in daylightCheck for movement the next morning before touching anything. Then lift the comb and scrape the stalk off.
A few details make the difference between that going smoothly and going badly. Use a torch covered with red cellophane rather than a plain white beam, because an uncovered light pulls insects towards whoever is holding it. Work with the breeze at your back so nothing drifts into your face. Keep the door you intend to walk through unlatched. And resist the urge to stand there watching afterwards, which is the single most common mistake.
Never knock a live comb down. A broom, a rake handle, a pool scoop or a jet of water all end the same way: an intact colony lands at your feet or over your head, with nothing to defend any more and nowhere to go. If a nest can only be reached by hitting it from a distance, it is not a job for a householder.
Stragglers are normal and not a sign of failure. Foragers that were out when the comb was treated will come back to the spot and hover around the empty mounting point for a day or two before giving up. They have nothing left to defend and they disperse. That is also why scraping the stub of dried pulp off the surface afterwards is worth the extra minute.
The limit
When should a paper wasp nest go to a professional?
Whenever the comb is above standing reach, hidden inside something, one of several on the block, or sitting at an address where a sting would be a medical emergency. Those four cover most of the calls, and the first one covers most of the injuries, because the fall off the ladder does more damage than the colony.
Hedge nests deserve a particular mention. A comb slung between two branches deep inside a lilly pilly or a conifer stays invisible until you are already in among the foliage, and first contact is normally a blade or a hand. If you know a hedge has had one before, assume it has one now and check from a distance in the cool part of the morning before any cutting starts.
Multiples are the other thing householders miss. A good elevation suits more than one founding queen in the same spring, so a comb on the front eave often has company on the shed, the carport or the fence capping. Treating the one you noticed and leaving the rest is how a yard ends up feeling no better afterwards.
For anything on that list, Tim's paper wasp nest removal is the straightforward version: species confirmed first, protective suit and veil, the comb treated when the colony is gathered, the nest taken down where access allows, and the rest of the property walked before he packs up. He works across Melbourne and the suburbs around it, holds Victorian pest control licence 86488, and anything he treats is covered for three months, so a comb rebuilt on the same spot inside that window is dealt with at no cost.
Can the same elevation be protected for next summer?
Partly. Scraping every trace of old pulp off and keeping the surface clean removes the signal that tells a new queen the spot works. A residual treatment on a known problem elevation helps through the founding weeks. Neither is permanent, which is why a quick look along the eaves each October is worth more than either.
What does an empty winter comb need?
A scraper and a bin. From about May the comb is abandoned and nothing is living in it, so there is no reason to pay anybody. Wear gloves, wet the mounting point first so the stalk lifts rather than smears, and check the rest of that run while the ladder is already out.
Questions
Paper wasp questions worth answering
Are paper wasps aggressive?
Not generally. They take no interest in people at a normal distance and they do not scavenge at food the way European wasps do. What they will do is defend the comb within about a metre of it, and because the sting is reusable, a single disturbance can mean several stings in a few seconds.
Do paper wasps do any good?
Yes, which is part of the reason the advice is to leave a safely placed nest alone. The adults hunt caterpillars and other soft bodied insects to feed their grubs, so a colony working a garden is reducing the chewing damage on your vegetables and shrubs at no cost to you.
Will the colony use the same comb next year?
No. The comb is abandoned at the end of the season and never reoccupied. What repeats is the location, because mated queens look for the same conditions the following spring and old pulp marks a proven spot. Clearing the residue changes the odds.
What happens if I only treat half of them?
The survivors usually rebuild, often within a few days and sometimes a metre away in a worse position. A partial result also leaves a colony that is now agitated near a spot people walk past. Either finish the job properly at dusk or leave it to somebody who can.
Is it safe to prune a shrub that has a nest in it?
Not while the nest is active. Cutting shakes the branch the comb hangs from, which the colony reads as an attack, and you are inside the defended radius with both hands busy. Deal with the nest first, or wait until the comb is abandoned over winter.
Comb over a doorway or out of reach?
Send a photo from well back with your suburb and the rough height, and Tim will confirm the species and set the price before anything is booked.
Reviewed October 2026 by Tim, licensed pest control operator (Victorian licence No. 86488). Sting reactions: Better Health Channel. Operator licensing in Victoria: Department of Health.