Help identifying/treating wasps

Hi, I just moved in and noticed wasps (I think) working hard above my balcony. Can someone please help with identification and suggest if I can treat it myself, without an exterminator?

Here's two (and a half) honeycomb shaped nests:



Not much activity on them though, so I kept looking and found this inside the beam:



(It's looking me in the eyes and saying "don't mess with us!"

I hate to attack them, but the neighbours are complaining. Spraying the honeycomb things, no problem, they are trapped in the corner. Spraying inside the beam though, I'm a little concerned the nest might fall down and make it harder to target... any thoughts? Do I need an exterminator?

 

Attacking then now, in the heat of summer is tough, I have a couple areas they are gathering, just planning to wait till it cools down and then can kick their azz!

 

Once the nest is sprayed good even if it falls to an unaccessible area I think the wasps would abandon that nest. I have multiple dead nests in my barn that were hit with 20' spray.

 

You don't really need to identify wasps to use wasp spray on them. Simple DIY job if you are brave enough.

 

You can treat this yourself easily enough. I'd treat near dusk/dark when you can still see well enough, but we can be confident that the majority and maybe all the wasps are on the nests. That would most likely stop them from re-building, in case the foragers were away from the nest, and it was treated in the daytime.

The paper nest are used one season only so no worries if nest falls into voids. The void will enhance treatment as it will act as a chamber with no air movement. Is it possible that some of the paper nests are from last year? They are never re-used, so if you see no activity on some of them, then they can be safely removed. No problem treating them anyway, but not necessary.

 

My guess is it's a European paper wasp.



I have a live-and-let-live policy with most bees (carpenter bees excluded) but I will kill every wasp I can every chance I get. To not kill them is to encourage them to further colonize.

 

Utility workers are trained to attack with a can of spray in each hand. If one can fails and the critters are angry the backup can is available. 40' up a pole is not a good place to have angry wasps around.