European wasps

First: leave the nest alone

Four official pages put it four ways.

How to recognise one

The Australian Museum describes a thickset wasp whose abdomen is striped bright yellow and black, each yellow stripe carrying two black spots. It has two pairs of clear wings, the first pair larger, black antennae, and it flies with its legs held close to its body. Victoria’s Better Health Channel puts it at around 15mm long, with a queen about 20mm, and says it looks similar in size and shape to a bee.

Western Australia’s department, which asks the public to report every sighting, lists four signs to look for:

• Wasps eating meat, fruit, people’s food and drink, pet food, insects or dead animals.
• Wasps coming and going through one hole in the ground; it says 90% of nests are hidden underground.
• Wasps flying with raised legs: the department notes all other wasps and bees dangle their legs in flight.
• Black antennae; paper wasps, which look similar, have orange-yellow ones.

Several wasps, bees and flies carry yellow and black stripes too, so they can be confused with European wasps. The native look-alikes have their own page: paper wasps and native wasps.

Where the nest is

In Western Australia’s description, a European wasp nest is rarely seen. It is usually below ground, with the entrance appearing as a hole that is busy with many wasps entering and leaving each minute; on rare occasions it is in a roof, a tree hollow or a wall cavity. It grows over summer to the size of a basketball or bigger, round or oval, with an outer covering that looks like grey papier mâché or egg carton material.

The ACT’s page adds that nests can be built in the cavities of walls and the roof spaces of buildings, where the wasps will excavate the plasterboard to extend the space. A nest in a building can show itself as a constant stream of wasps going to and from one spot. The Australian Museum notes the nests are made from chewed wood fibre.

A year in the nest

Drawn from the Australian Museum and Western Australia’s department.

1. Spring

   A single fertilised queen starts the colony, laying eggs in a number of cells. She tends the grub-like larvae for a number of weeks, and they become the first workers, who take over building the nest.

2. Summer

   The nest grows throughout the summer, and wasp activity peaks. In Western Australia, the department says European wasps are easiest to detect between December and May.

3. Autumn

   Males and new queens hatch, mate and fly off to start new nests. In late autumn the original queen dies.

4. Winter

   Queens hibernate. But the Museum notes that in Australia’s warmer climate one of the new queens may stay in the nest and keep laying, which over several seasons can produce giant and potentially dangerous nests of over 100,000 wasps. Western Australia calls these “overwintered” nests.

Why it turns up at a picnic

European wasp workers go out from the nest looking for food, and meat, sweet things and drinks draw them in. The ACT suggests feeding pets indoors when wasps are present, as they can be very aggressive if disturbed. Victoria’s Better Health Channel suggests:

• don’t leave food, drink or pet food outside
• make sure outdoor rubbish bins have tight-fitting lids
• outdoors, use a straw rather than drinking straight from a can or bottle, in case a wasp is inside
• leave any European wasp you see alone, since it attacks only when provoked.

Beyond the sting, Western Australia lists harm to native insects, which the wasps compete with and prey on; damage to crops like grapes and stone fruits; and preying on bees in managed apiaries.

Where it has spread, and where it hasn’t

The European wasp is native to Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor. It was first found in Australia in 1959, in Tasmania, and by 1978 was also known in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia, according to the Australian Museum.

Western Australia is the exception. Its department says it has prevented the wasp from establishing a permanent population since 1977, destroying 1,765 colonies to 2026, and that no other place in the world within the wasps’ range has kept them from settling in for so long. Fertilised queens still arrive each year in freight, mostly from the eastern states. The department invites people to report sightings and to join its Adopt-a-trap program in the warmer months; its European wasp page has the ways to report.

If one stings

Unlike bees, European wasps can sting more than once and do not die after stinging. Victoria’s Better Health Channel says about one person in 10 becomes allergic after being stung twice or more. Western Australia’s page points to healthdirect for first aid, and so does this guide: stings and allergic reactions gives healthdirect’s steps in full.

If you think someone is having anaphylaxis, healthdirect says to give an adrenaline autoinjector if there is one, and ring triple zero (000) for an ambulance.

Better Health Channel’s European wasp page, last reviewed 23 October 2018, still describes applying a pressure immobilisation bandage, as does the Australian Museum’s honey bee page. healthdirect’s current steps, last reviewed June 2025, do not include one.