A hornet nest is rarely visible. What shows is the traffic at a crack in the render, and whether it returns depends on the nest coming out and the opening being closed.
Which insect it is decides how the job ends
Oriental hornets and paper wasps
Vespa orientalis, the Oriental hornet, is confirmed in Lebanon across four governorates. It is deep russet with one broad yellow band, and it peaks in late summer and early autumn. Paper wasps are smaller, with an open grey comb under a balcony ceiling.
Honeybee swarms
A swarm is a colony on the move, not an attack, and with nothing to defend it can go to a beekeeper. Bees that have built comb inside a wall are a different job: the wax and honey draw ants, cockroaches and hornets.
How pest control licensing works in Lebanon
Household pest control in Lebanon is licensed by the Ministry of Public Health, through the Directorate of Health Prevention and its Sanitary Engineering Service, under Decree 5100 of 12 April 1982, while agricultural pesticides sit under the Ministry of Agriculture, and the two licences are not interchangeable. No public register exists, so the only check is the certificate and which ministry issued it.
The Ministry of Public Health has banned aluminium and zinc phosphide for pest control in residential and populated areas nationwide.
Where the nests sit in a Lebanese building
- wall cavities behind cracked render
- rolling shutter boxes
- the gap behind a split air conditioner
- roof tiles and parapets
Roughly 40,000 buildings were damaged in the port blast, concentrated in Mar Mikhael, Gemmayzeh and Karantina, and the open joints are the entry a colony takes. Collection suspensions recur across Beirut, Metn and Keserwan, and a hornet forages what is left below.
How the visit works
1. Finding the entrance
The species is identified and the traffic followed to the opening, at dusk or early morning with the foragers inside.
2. Taking the nest out
Treatment goes in at that entrance, and where access allows the comb and brood come out rather than rot in the wall.
3. Sealing and clearing up
The cavity is closed once the nest is out, so it is not there for a new queen next spring.
Nests at a restaurant, shop or warehouse
On a commercial site the work runs wider than the nest, because a hornet that has found a bin store keeps returning. Food business paperwork is set out in how pest control licensing works in Lebanon.
Nest work is carried out across Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Metn, Baabda and Keserwan, from Achrafieh to Antelias and up to Jounieh. To have a nest looked at, call +961 3 265900 or book an inspection.
