Honeybee and bumblebee nests are typically not a problem and should be preserved whenever possible. To get rid of yellow jacket and paper wasp nests it is best to treat them late in the evening or ...

My hour with Gavin is almost up but he won't let me go until he's shown me some of the most impressive nests in the NHM's collection. "Wasps probably gave us the idea for paper," he says.

The wasp will go back to its nest with a small pellet of wood in its mouth and create a sort of laminate of the wood pulp, a bit like paper, that dries and solidifies. This process is repeated ...