14 DAY TRIAL // “You guys know what would be fun?” a bunch of wasps asked some of their friends not too long ago. “No, what?” “Getting together and building a freakishly big nest inside somebody's bedroom,” the mischievous wasps answered. And so this piece of news was born.
Not to beat about the bush (any longer, that is), it was late last week, on Sunday, when an exterminator found himself working on removing a really big nest built by about 5,000 wasps inside a guest room in Winchester, England.
The nest, pictured next to this article, sat right on top of the bed inside this guest room. It burrowed into the mattress, and the exterminator says that, in order to build it, the wasps had to chew through a blanket and some pillows.
Judging by its size, John Birkett of Longwood Services Pest Control estimates that the insects had to work for about three months to piece it together. Since the room was intended for guests and nobody entered it during this entire time, they got to work undisturbed.
According to Huffington Post, the nest was discovered when the son of the woman who owns the house went to the guest room looking for something. Shortly after stumbling upon the wasp colony, the family called in the exterminator.
“I have never ever in my 40 odd years on the job seen something like this before,” John Birkett told the press in an interview. “I stood with amazement looking at it,” the Longwood Services Pest Control exterminator went on to add.
In order to destroy the nest, John Birkett first had to seal the windows and fumigate the worker bees. Otherwise, he would have been attacked by them. After dealing with the insects, he injected the nest with a special powder, and eventually proceeded to breaking it apart.
The exterminator says that it took him several hours to remove the nest from the woman's bedroom, and that, once he was done, he disposed of the resulting bits and pieces in the garden. It is to be expected that the nest remains will eventually be taken to a dump site.
The identity of the woman who owns the house inside which the 5,000 wasps built their nest has not yet been shared with the public, and probably never will be. John Birkett says that, given the size of the nest, he is still having trouble figuring out how she failed to notice that something was seriously off.