Stories From Your Techs – #1 The Herculean Hornets’ Nest

This blog series captures the craziest, funniest, and most bizarre pest problems that your local technicians have encountered. This story comes from one of our most experienced technicians, Albert Giles, who began working with us at Pointe Pest Control in 2014.  

The Herculean Hornets’ Nest

It was 2015, my second year at Pointe, and I had been called to a home for an initial service to treat a hornet’s nest. As I was walking up to the door, I noticed hornets flying around the home and disappearing inside along the roof. But, even after seeing that, I had no idea what I was truly in for…

When the customer opened the door, I greeted him, then gestured up to where I’d seen the hornets. “I see you have a lot of hornets going into your home, sir.” The look on his face made it apparent that, that was not news to him. He smiled slightly and shrugged. “Follow me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

Within minutes, I was standing at the entrance to the customer’s attic. “Brace yourself,” he warned me. I swung open the attic door and shined my flashlight into the darkness. Nothing I had ever seen or even heard of before could have prepared me for what I saw next. A giant grey mass protruded from the side of the slanted ceiling. The bottom of it was rounded and spread out along the floor while the top stretched up along the beams toward the point where the two sides of the roof met. I moved the light around in shock and began to see black spots scattered around the base of the gigantic nest which, on closer inspection, turned out to be large dead hornets, each about the size of a quarter. As I continued to look around, a faint buzzing hit my ears and I could see giant hornets darting through my light. A wave of fear seemed to crash into me as I took in the true gravity of the situation. This may have been the largest hornets’ nest in pest control history, and I was just prepped for a normal softball-sized nest… I didn’t even have a bee suit with me. Quickly, I retreated from the attic, closed the door, and looked at the customer. He met my gaze.

“Pretty dang bad, huh?” he said.

The service was rescheduled so I could be properly prepared to take on a job of that magnitude. When I returned, I was armed with a bee suit, a plethora of supplies, and some backup in the form of my manager and veteran field technician. Even though I was wearing a full bee suit, I was still insanely nervous due to the sheer massive size of the colony and each individual hornet. Luckily, with the help of my Manager, I managed to dismantle the herculean hive bit by bit and exterminate all the hornets in the area.

When all was said and done, it took an extra-large, heavy duty garbage bag to remove the nest. That is by far one of the wildest encounters I’ve had with stinging pests. But, as scary as it was, it was worth it to help protect that family from those dangerous hornets.

True Story from Technician: Albert Giles

Written By: Katalina Dawson