Sighting 4209076
Common Paper Wasp at Tura Beach, NSW
Identification history
| Polistes (Polistella) humilis | 15 May 2019 | KimPullen | ||
| Unidentified | 15 May 2019 | Steff |
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User's notes
These wasps have made a nest on the brick wall under a window sill. The nest looks like a grey and black beehive about the size of a cricket ball.
Should I be concerned about them?
4 comments
JackieMiles
wrote:
16 May 2019
Hi Steff, Looks like the native Polistes humilis, though I would have said the nest was more like an upside down mushroom hanging by its stem. We get them under our eaves. They pack a wallop if you annoy them (for example, opening an umbrella under the nest is not a good idea!) but generally we rub along without incident. Depends how close the nest is to paths, as to whether evicting them is necessary. If you decide it is, I generally go after ours in the early morning when they are cold, with a sprayer of pyrethrum and clean up the dead wasps and larvae after so that birds or skinks can't eat them. Their nests don't seem to get much bigger over time, whereas the other common native paper wasp, Ropalidia plebeiana, builds hanging free form sheets that just go on getting bigger season by season. They sometimes form enormous colonies under bridges.
Steff
wrote:
16 May 2019
Thank you for your help! The nest is under a second story window frame so they are fine where they are, I don't think we need to mess about with their house.
I'm interested in the different nest shape you describe, these ones have made a shape like a ball smooshed onto the bricks with kind of honeycomb like chambers. I can't get a photo because it's too high up and the zoom on my phone is rubbish!
I'm interested in the different nest shape you describe, these ones have made a shape like a ball smooshed onto the bricks with kind of honeycomb like chambers. I can't get a photo because it's too high up and the zoom on my phone is rubbish!
JackieMiles
wrote:
17 May 2019
Hi Steff, Actually on reviewing our photos, I see we do have one showing a rather ball-like nest, but mostly they seem to be flat-bottomed like this one: 
Polistes (Polistella) humilis (Common Paper Wasp) on 26 Jan 2007
Here's our ball shaped one: Polistes (Polistella) humilis (Common Paper Wasp) on 1 Mar 2015
Polistes (Polistella) humilis (Common Paper Wasp) on 26 Jan 2007Here's our ball shaped one:
Polistes (Polistella) humilis (Common Paper Wasp) on 1 Mar 2015
Steff
wrote:
17 May 2019
Those links are really cool, thank you!
I have had another look at the nest and I think the way the wasps have built it , kind of wedged up under the window sill, makes it look kind of like a ball of playdo squashed under the sill. I'm guessing the anchor stalk is hidden from view and the shape is like the second link image.
Thanks again for your information.
I have had another look at the nest and I think the way the wasps have built it , kind of wedged up under the window sill, makes it look kind of like a ball of playdo squashed under the sill. I'm guessing the anchor stalk is hidden from view and the shape is like the second link image.
Thanks again for your information.
Location information
- Coordinates 149.922984-36.868062
- Places Tura Beach, NSW
Sighting information
- 4 - 15 Abundance
- 15 May 2019 11:49 AM Recorded on
- Steff Recorded by
Species information
- Polistes (Polistella) humilis Scientific name
- Common Paper Wasp Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Local native
- Non-Invasive
- Up to 3648.9m Recorded at altitude
- Machine learning
- External link More information
