Eeeewwwww, don't like the look of this !!!!!!

[flowerfairy]

I've just found some kind of nest on my fireplace... yuck !!!,
it looks like a small clay pot, with a perfect hole at the top,
Any ideas what nest it is, and shall I just wack it with a handbrush and sweep in into a dustpan,
or run for cover???
HELP please.

[Jonnie]

probably a mud daubing wasp. you will have seen them, long body with a thing joining trunk. They build mud nests then fill them with spiders, lay their eggs in them and seal them. When the eggs hatch they feed on the spiders. Pretty harmless and fascinating.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_dauber

[Groucho]

Could be a hornets nest...

Does it look like this?

http://www.wildwanderer.com/blog/?p=185

[Jonnie]

you might have stirred up a can of worms there Groucho

[flowerfairy]

very similar groucho, and yes, it did have dead spiders in it.
I'm sure it's one of the best builds that I've seen on the island,

[sophie]

We've had these and i suspect that Jonnie is correct. I cut one in half after I was convinced there was no inspect activity and it was the most amazing construction ever. I kept it for quite a long time until it started to disintergrate. We've had them in corners of windows, at the back of A/C units, all sorts of places.

[dippersgirl]

They love the old beamed ceilings. My Turkish friend tells me, that as a child they would play with the 'babies'.

[yucatan]

It a potter wasp, quite harmless, thin long flying insect with long dangling legs,with a waist line that would make most women envious off ,difficult little blighters will keep looking for places to make their clay nests (pots) for laying eggs, check pleats in curtains, behind furniture, check google search engine for potter wasp .

[flowerfairy]

Thankyou all, you've been most enlightening. Amazing creatures.

[muffin]

Have noticed once they hatch in the house they will return next year to the same area - quite fascinating

[sophie]

What wonderful days they must have been i.e. to play with baby Potter Wasps. Now if they don't have an iPad they sulk. I can remember I used to play for hours with Lady Birds!! Different world then, quite innocent and I didn't need to be surrounded with other people either.

[Jonnie]

potter wasps are mud daubing wasps. If there were spiders that is what it is, it is very unusual to get stung by one.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/imag ... lzyYxwuBcX

[pc4854]

Very intelligent too. I watched one flying down a passage to a bedroom from the open back door. I wondered where it was building and as there were two ajacent bedrooms, I waited between the two doors. Along flew our friend but he knew something was wrong, an obstacle was in place (me) that was not there before. He worried that he was off course so he flew back to the back door and started again. When he got back to the obstacle, he flew around me and then went into the bedroom in which he was building. In this case he was unlucky as he was trying to build on a wardrobe hinge and it fell off when the wardrobe door was opened

[frontalman]

Not sure it's the same thing but we call them dingly-danglies. We get them every year, one just built a nest in my black shorts which were lying on a radiator for a day or two. They look like flying earrings, top and bottom separated by a thin waist. They lay grubs in the mud ball, usually under tables or in dark recesses before they hatch you will see lots of wiggly grubs in lots of holes in said nest. We get rid of them if we find them indoors but in the pool pump room they are just fine, and fascinating.

[Owl Lady]

Hi. I was told they are Hornets and they do return to the same place each year to rebuild. I have about 6 around the place, outside, but one is trying to build in my small wall mounted electric heater in the bathroom at the moment.

[Philoz]

Frontalman - I do hope you didn't put your shorts on with the nest in them?

Otherwise you could have been stung on the Dingly Danglies by the Dingly Danglies!

Well I thought it was funny....
I'll get me coat....

[niceone]

hahahaha

I have the same warped sense of humour

[flowerfairy]

you are sooo funny Philoz, love you humour, have a nice day,

[Groucho]

There are two quite distinct types of nest, so it depends on whether the nest is made of mud, which turns to powdery clay-ish dust when crushed and the stronger 'paper' type of nest which is less brittle, very tough and made by a different insect.

[flowerfairy]

Groucho, mine was tough, then went powdery when I belted it with the handbrush, and there were spiders in it

[Groucho]

Definitely sounds like a potter wasp then... in addition to spiders we've seen them carry enormous oleander moth caterpillars into a nest to act as feed for their young. They have to build the nest around the grub - as it's so large! They paralyse the grub with venom but they don't kill it dead so it stays fresh for their babies. Gruesome fascinating stuff.