When you find a wasp nest, the most useful thing you can figure out is what type of nest it is. The nest’s shape, material, and location tell you which wasp built it, how many wasps are likely inside, how defensive they’ll be, and whether you need to do anything at all.
For non-aggressive wasps I've had great luck spraying nests with this Spectracide wasp remover in the evening. For a nest up high in an eave, soffit, or tree, this Gotcha pole adapter clamps onto the can so you can spray from the end of an extension pole and treat the nest from 10+ feet away instead of standing right under it. And for anything aggressive I wear this ridiculous-looking upper torso beekeeping suit and keep my distance. It seems silly, but trust me, I learned the hard way.
The good news is that there are only a handful of basic designs. Nearly every wasp nest a North American homeowner runs into fits one of the nine types below. This guide sorts them by how they’re built (paper or mud, open or enclosed, above ground or below), so you can match what you’re looking at even if you never get a good look at the wasps themselves.
For removal methods, seasonal timing, and the bigger picture on nests around the home, see our complete guide to wasp nests.
Start here. Find the row that matches what you see, then jump to that section for details.
| Nest type | What it looks like | Usually built by | Typical colony | Risk to people |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Open paper comb | Gray, umbrella-shaped comb with cells visible from below | Paper wasps | 10–75 wasps | Moderate |
| 2. Enclosed aerial paper ball | Gray, football- or teardrop-shaped paper ball with one entrance hole | Bald-faced hornets, aerial yellowjackets | 100–700 | High |
| 3. Hidden cavity paper nest | Wasps streaming in and out of a gap in a wall, attic, or hollow tree | Yellowjackets, European hornets, European paper wasps | Hundreds to thousands | High |
| 4. Underground paper nest | Steady traffic in and out of a single hole in the lawn or under a stump | Yellowjackets | Hundreds to thousands | Very high |
| 5. Mud tubes (“organ pipes”) | Long, parallel mud tubes side by side | Organ-pipe mud daubers | Solitary | Very low |
| 6. Mud cell clumps | Lumpy mud mass about the size of a lemon or smaller | Black-and-yellow mud daubers (reused by blue mud daubers) | Solitary | Very low |
| 7. Mud jars | Tiny round mud pot, pea- to marble-sized, with a narrow neck | Potter wasps | Solitary | Very low |
| 8. Plugged holes and stems | Mud, leaves, or grass stuffed into nail holes, window tracks, or hollow stems | Mason wasps, grass-carrying wasps | Solitary | Very low |
| 9. Soil burrows | Many small holes with loose soil, often in sandy or bare ground | Cicada killers, digger wasps, sand wasps | Solitary (may cluster) | Low |
Notice the split: paper nests are almost always social colonies that defend their home as a group, while mud nests and burrows are almost always solitary wasps that rarely sting unless handled. That one distinction answers most “should I worry?” questions.
Social wasps make paper by chewing weathered wood or plant fiber and mixing it with saliva. The color of the paper depends on the wood source, so nests can be gray, tan, brown, or striped. Our guide to what wasp nests are made of explains how the material is gathered and shaped.
In most of the U.S., every paper nest is annual. A single queen starts it in spring, it peaks in late summer, and the colony dies off after hard frosts. The old nest is not reused the following year.
This is the most familiar wasp nest: a single, flat or slightly domed comb that hangs from one thin stalk (called a petiole), with no outer covering. Look up at it and you can see the open hexagonal cells, some capped with white silk where pupae are developing.
Paper wasps are less defensive than yellowjackets or hornets, but they will sting if the nest is bumped, and nests are often placed exactly where people put their hands. For full identification and removal advice, see our paper wasp nest guide.
These nests wrap the combs inside several layers of paper called an envelope. From the outside you see a smooth or swirled gray ball, usually shaped like a teardrop or football, with a single entrance hole near the bottom. Inside are several stacked tiers of comb.
This is the type people picture when they say “hornet nest,” and it deserves respect. Bald-faced hornets defend aggressively and often pour out of the nest when it’s bumped or vibrated. If you find one in your yard, our wasp nest in a tree guide covers when to leave it and when to remove it, and our hornet nest vs. wasp nest comparison shows how it differs from a paper wasp comb.
Some social wasps build an enclosed paper nest inside a protected space instead of out in the open. You usually never see the nest itself. You see a steady line of wasps flying into a crack in siding, a gap around a vent or soffit, a weep hole in brick, or a knothole in a tree.
Cavity nests are the type most likely to end up indoors. Wasps sometimes chew through drywall or find their way through light fixtures. Never seal the entrance of an active wall nest, because trapped wasps may chew inward into your living space. Our guides on how wasps get into your house and finding a hidden nest walk through how to locate and deal with them. These nests usually call for a professional.
From above ground, an underground nest looks like nothing more than a single hole, often about the size of a nickel or quarter, in the lawn, a flower bed, under a stump, or beside a landscape timber. What gives it away is the constant traffic: yellowjackets flying straight in and out, one after another, all day long.
Below the surface, the colony usually takes over an old rodent burrow and enlarges it, building a round paper nest with many tiers of comb. By late summer, a single nest can hold thousands of yellowjackets. In parts of the Deep South, some colonies survive the winter and grow into enormous perennial nests.
Underground yellowjacket nests are behind a large share of multiple-sting incidents because they’re stepped on, mowed over, or hit with a string trimmer. Read our underground wasp nest guide and yellowjacket nest guide before you go near one. Don’t pour gasoline or other fuels into the hole. It’s dangerous, pollutes soil and groundwater, and often fails anyway.
Mud nests are built one load at a time by a single female wasp. There’s no colony, no workers, and no group defense. Each cell gets a paralyzed spider or caterpillar and one egg, and then the female seals it and moves on. Mud-nesting wasps are among the least aggressive stinging insects you’ll encounter. Our mud wasp nest guide covers all three types in more depth.
These are long, narrow mud tubes, each roughly pencil-width and up to several inches long, laid side by side like the pipes of a church organ. You’ll find them on protected vertical surfaces: inside sheds and garages, under decks and bridges, on porch walls, and on the sides of barns.
This type looks like a lumpy blob of dried mud, often lemon-sized or smaller, plastered onto a ceiling, wall, or rafter. Underneath the rough outer coat is a cluster of cylindrical cells.
Small round holes in a mud clump mean the adult wasps have already emerged. An old nest with exit holes is empty and can be scraped off with a putty knife. For more on these wasps, see our mud dauber guide.
The smallest and most charming nest type is a single round mud pot, about the size of a pea or small marble, with a narrow neck and flared lip like a tiny vase. You’ll find these on plant stems, twigs, fences, and house siding.
Potter wasps are excellent garden helpers because they feed caterpillars to their young. There’s no reason to remove these nests.
The last two types aren’t so much built as adapted. These wasps move into an existing hole or dig their own, then partition it into cells.
If you’ve ever found a nail hole, a gap in a window frame, or a hollow plant stem neatly capped with mud, that’s the work of a cavity-nesting solitary wasp. Common examples:
Mason bees and leafcutter bees use the same kinds of holes. They often plug them with mud or chewed leaves, so a plugged hole doesn’t always mean a wasp. Either way, these insects are harmless to people and useful pollinators or pest predators. If they’re in a window track you need to use, simply clean out the material once the insects have emerged.
Solitary ground-nesting wasps dig their own burrows. Unlike a yellowjacket nest, which has one busy entrance, burrow nests usually show many separate holes, each surrounded by a small pile or fan of loose soil, often in bare, sunny, sandy, or well-drained ground.
Even when dozens of these burrows appear in one patch of lawn, each belongs to a separate female. Males may buzz and hover at people, but male wasps can’t sting, and females rarely sting unless they’re stepped on barefoot or grabbed. Most homeowners can simply wait out the few weeks these wasps are active. Our ground wasp guide explains how to tell burrows from a yellowjacket nest.
Before you treat anything, make sure it’s actually a wasp nest:
Our bee nest vs. wasp nest guide has more side-by-side comparisons.
Here’s a practical way to rank nest types by risk for a typical household:
Highest priority, often a job for a professional:
Moderate, often manageable yourself if small and reachable from the ground:
Low, usually fine to leave alone:
A few factors raise the stakes for any nest type: anyone in the household with a known sting allergy, young children or pets that play nearby, and nests that sit where you mow, trim, or open doors.
You don’t need to get close to identify most nests. Use these habits:
Wasp nests fall into three broad groups: paper nests built by social wasps (open combs, enclosed aerial balls, cavity nests, and underground nests), mud nests built by solitary wasps (organ-pipe tubes, mud clumps, and potter wasp jars), and cavity or burrow nests where solitary wasps use or dig a hole and divide it into cells.
Paper wasp nests are open combs with visible cells. Hornet nests, a name usually given to bald-faced hornet and European hornet nests, are enclosed in a paper envelope with a single entrance. See our hornet nest vs. wasp nest guide for photos and details.
No. Many parasitic wasps lay eggs directly in or on other insects and never build a nest. Some spider wasps use an existing burrow, such as a tarantula hawk using the tarantula’s own hole. And blue mud daubers usually take over other wasps’ old mud nests rather than building their own.
Underground yellowjacket nests and hidden wall nests cause the most trouble for homeowners, because they’re large, defensive, and easy to disturb without realizing they’re there. Large bald-faced hornet nests are a close second.
Social wasps in most of North America don’t reuse last year’s paper nest. Mud nests are a partial exception: blue mud daubers and some other solitary wasps will move into old mud cells. Removing empty nests in winter is fine and makes it easier to spot new activity in spring. Our guide on how to keep wasps from building nests covers prevention.
Identifying the type of wasp nest is the first and most important step before you decide what to do. Paper nests mean a social colony that will defend itself, and a few of them, especially underground and in-wall yellowjacket nests, are worth calling a professional for. Mud nests, plugged holes, and solitary burrows belong to wasps that almost never sting and often help control garden pests.
Take a careful look from a safe distance, match it to one of the nine types above, and you’ll know whether you’re dealing with a real hazard or a harmless neighbor.
This article is for general educational purposes. Always follow label directions on any insecticide, and never use ladders, fire, or fuel to deal with a wasp nest. If anyone shows signs of a severe allergic reaction after a sting, such as trouble breathing, swelling of the face or throat, or dizziness, call 911 immediately. See our wasp sting treatment guide for first aid.