Wasp infestations

To be honest couldn't see clearly enough in your pictures.  Were they hornets?  If so and you have a chimney they may have established a nest there.  If it ends in an open fireplace, then they could have flown down it at the end of the season.  Its possible the queen is overwintering there now.  We have problems with nesting in our chimney. They will fill the whole of the cowl over the summer often....  There is only one way.  You'll see all the super cans in supermarkets and gardening/agricultural stores.  I believe the jet of insecticide is very powerful so you don't have to be close ... but several dusk applications would be needed.  Then the chimney cowl would have to come off and the obstruction removed.  We often see chimneys covered in mosquito netting in the summer.  As people say on your blog - a Ligurian country house, scorpions, millepedes, hornets, wasps, flies and gorgeous midges and mosquitos.  Of course there are the friends too like lizards and wild boar.

A pre-dawn visit with a big blowtorch is usually very effective once the "nida" has been located!

A powerful jet, aimed from 3 metres away should do it. Or, even better, get the professionals in. S

We have had nests of wasps and hornets annually in our chimney and every year (in the Summer) we observe them going in at dusk. As the house is in use most of the year they haven't come into the rooms themselves but I was never comfortable so got husband to get up on the roof with the long distance spray (only available from ferramenti as far as I know) and destroy the nest. This year we are removing the huge open fireplace and putting in a wood burner but the idea of putting netting over the chimney seems a good one if you don't want to take such drastic action.

Just to say the problem doesn't go away.  We had a couple come down the chimney and into the wood-burning stove.

Ciao e tutti, I recently found an active underground common-wasp nest on out land. I marked so as to avoid stumbling upon it later. A couple of days later I went back to look at it & found that it had been completely dug up and destroyed. There were a few disorientated wasps buzzing around, but the nest & paper combs had been broken apart & eaten. Nearby I found a few small footprints & some (what looks like) porcupine spoor! I knew that European badgers were partial to wasps nests, but porcupines? The locals are adamant that there are no badgers in our area, so either they are wrong, or porcupines or cingiale eat wasps! Anybody else had their wasps dug up?

Well, perhaps your neighbours are wrong, as there seems to be quite a few badgers in Italy: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:8f96zhBGfp4J:www.italian-journal-of-mammalogy.it/article/download/4474/pdf+badger+italy&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShwua3kgzIJl2VAM41TZKyk2u_YTUCEmSJ2merqhcMx5CEyjzKSZy0qK0k3LDqNmtcBMxRLIXW0LqUCzr9Dov_tyh9qPHAuNC59l6T-7Q9JJY68LsJ9RvVAwJDwLrXibfeQu8va&sig=AHIEtbS-k0e_ydqKjUgtzDDcS5hu7G7_BQ and Italian badger beauty brushes are considered the best!

".... and Italian badger beauty brushes are considered the best! ..."   Not if you're a badger!

Perhaps, it is not a "tasso" or badger, but another member of the "mustelidi" http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/tag/mustelidi/ We have at least a couple of the "ermillini" (whistles) living under the arches of the mill on the river. We hardly see them, but I noticed two unidentified little animals who terrorised other animals whenever they appeared. A friend of us, who knows a lot about animals, identified them. In theory, it is not very common to see them in our area.... but they are there. I always leave out some food for them on the steps that go down up to the river and they certainly it that. Now, I do not know whether all "mustelidi" eat wasps... but we do not have any problems with them.