Wasps & Bees near you

The British Beekeepers Association keeps a list of volunteer swarm collectors, and the service is exactly that — volunteer. Collectors are not paid, though some may ask for expenses, and they fit collection around their own commitments, so nobody is obliged to come and nobody comes instantly. They also assess their own safety first, which means a swarm high in a tree or over a road may simply be out of reach. Swarms are most common from May to late July, on warm sunny days, usually between late morning and mid-afternoon.

The crucial limit is what has already happened to the bees. The BBKA is clear that it does not help with established colonies inside buildings — in a chimney or a cavity — because that is no longer a cluster that can be shaken into a box but a comb structure built inside a structure. Removing one means opening up the building, cutting out comb and dealing with the honey left behind, which is a job for a specialist rather than a volunteer with a skep.

Bumblebees and wasps are outside the scheme entirely. The BBKA advises leaving bumblebees alone as valuable and sometimes endangered pollinators, warns against blocking their entrance hole because they will look for another way out and may end up inside the house, and notes that the nest dies out naturally in late autumn. It does not remove wasps, and points out that wasps pollinate and eat garden pests, while accepting that a badly placed nest may need a pest controller.

Most wasp nests are a nuisance rather than an emergency, and the ones that are not share a feature: people cannot avoid the flight path. A nest above a front door, beside a path, over a play area, at a bedroom window that has to be opened in summer, or inside a loft that someone needs to use, puts a defended colony between a household and part of its own home. Add anyone with a known sting allergy and the calculation changes entirely.

The failure mode to avoid is a half-treated nest. An aerosol emptied at a roof edge from the top of a ladder is unlikely to reach the nest itself, very likely to provoke the colony, and is being done by someone standing on a ladder while it happens. If the nest is above ground-floor reach, that is the point to stop. The same applies in reverse to lofts and roof voids: anything sprayed into a roof space needs the loft checked first, because bat roosts are protected whether or not bats are visible, and that question sits outside the scope of a quick treatment.

The yellow-legged hornet, commonly called the Asian hornet, is a non-native species that damages honey bee colonies and harms other pollinators. Government advice in May 2024 was explicit that it is not yet established in the UK and that early detection is a key part of the surveillance that keeps it that way. Reports can be made through the free Asian Hornet Watch app for Android and iPhone, through the online notification form, or by email, and a photograph and the location of the sighting should be included.

It is the Animal and Plant Health Agency's National Bee Unit that locates and destroys nests, and it has done so at scale: in 2023 it attended every credible sighting, locating and destroying 72 nests in 56 locations. That is why the useful action for a homeowner is a photograph and a report rather than a private treatment — a nest destroyed quietly by a contractor is a data point that never reaches the surveillance programme.

One point that reassures people: government advice is that the yellow-legged hornet poses no greater risk to human health than native wasps and hornets. The concern driving the response is pollinators, not people, which is why the request is for sightings rather than for anyone to approach a nest.

A wasp nest at ground level beside a shed and a wasp nest in a third-storey soffit are the same treatment and very different jobs, and access is what separates them. The variables in a quotation are the height and reachability of the nest, whether a ladder, tower or platform is needed, whether the nest is in the open or inside a void that has to be traced, how many nests there are, whether treatment can be done at a time when the flight path can be kept clear, and whether any proofing or making good afterwards is included. Honey bee colonies established in a chimney or cavity are a different category again, because they involve opening up a structure and dealing with comb and honey.

LokalMatch's part is the introduction. You describe the job once with your postcode — what you think the insect is, where the nest is and how high it is — and firms covering your area get in touch. It costs homeowners nothing; the pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not do the work, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone, so if you suspect honey bees it is worth trying a BBKA swarm collector before you book a treatment.