Huge wasp nest takes over wildlife trust's office

A wasp nest inside Eilish Rothney's office in Ormesby St Michael in Norfolk. The nest is in the corner of the office and has taken over a book shelf with a number of ring binders on it.

Image source, Eilish RothneyImage caption,

Eilish Rothney said she first noticed the nest on 11 June after being out conducting surveys on the reserves she manages

ByNeve Gordon-Farleigh

Published57 minutes ago

A nature reserve manager has been working from home after a group of wasps took over her office and built a 1m (3.2ft) nest around a bookshelf of ring binders.

Eilish Rothney, a nature reserve manager for the Trinity Broads at the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, said after weeks of being out conducting surveys, she returned to her office on 11 June in Ormesby St Michael and saw wasps "buzzing round the corner".

She found a nest about "a quarter of the size it is now" and said she worked for more than two hours before calling it a day.

"It was just fascinating to watch the wasps coming and going and building up the lovely layers of colour — it looks like exotic paper," she said.

"It starts on the floor behind a box I put there, and they've come up on the inside and spread out on the box, and they've gone in all the little crevices around the binders and shelves."

Eilish Rothney, a reserve manager for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. She is standing outdoors with her body turned towards the left. She is looking directly at the camera and smiling and is wearing a blue outdoor zip up fleece.

Image source, Elizabeth DarkImage caption,

Eilish Rothney, who has been working from home, said the nest will be left until the autumn when the wasps will naturally leave

She said wasps on the marshes would have to deal with roaming cattle and sheep, so she challenged her inner "ungulate" to stroll through the office like a "browsing cow".

In the autumn, it is expected the wasps will leave the nest.

She said: "The intention is just to leave it be and eventually they will all leave. The females who emerge will then go off and try and hibernate and come back next spring as queens. All the worker wasps will eventually die off and go hunting for food."

A picture of the nest was shared by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, external, who said: "Thousands of new colleagues moved in without permission, skipped recruitment entirely and ignored the office hot-desking policy."

While people have been divided in the post's comments, Rothney said people do not need to be afraid of them.

She said: "I would encourage people, if you've got wasps that are bothering you, just to keep calm and try and move away. If you keep calm, they will sense that and won't feel threatened."

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