The manager of a family daycare in Saint-Amable, on the South Shore, contacted our team urgently after discovering a hornet’s nest at the entrance to the fenced backyard where the children play daily. The nest, nestled in a dense ornamental shrub on the edge of the wooden fence, was virtually invisible from the outside but located less than a metre from the path the children took to access the sandbox. The situation presented an immediate and serious risk: hornets defend their nests very aggressively when they feel threatened, and a play area frequented by young children is precisely the type of environment most conducive to incidents.
Perimeter Securing and Nest Assessment
As soon as the call was received, our technician was dispatched to the site within hours. The daycare temporarily prohibited access to the backyard until the end of the intervention, in accordance with the safety recommendations that we systematically make in this type of situation. In Saint-Amable, as in the residential areas of nearby Boucherville, yards surrounded by hedges and shrubs are frequent nesting areas for hornets, as they offer both shelter from the rain and optimal sun exposure in the morning, two conditions favourable to the development of the colony.
Visual inspection of the nest revealed a medium-sized structure, wrapped in the hornets’ characteristic grey husk, attached to the base of the shrub’s central branches. The downward-facing entrance to the nest was active with a steady flow of insects. The proximity of the soil and the location in a living plant required an approach that minimizes the risk of product dispersion in the soil or surrounding plants.
Treatment suitable for a sensitive environment
For a daycare, the criteria of safety for children and the protection of the immediate environment directly guide the choice of methods and products. Our protocol for this type of sensitive environment is based on a localized and targeted application of gel or powder insecticide directly into the nest opening, without ambient spraying. This method strictly limits the contact area of the product to the nest itself and its immediate surroundings, with no possible drift towards the sandbox, the playground equipment or the lawn where the children are playing. Our hornet extermination service has protocols specially developed for establishments receiving minors.
The treatment was carried out at the end of the day, after all the children had left. A residual insecticidal powder was injected into the entrance of the nest using a long-rod rigid blow gun allowing treatment without close approach. The immediate reaction of the colony confirmed the effective penetration of the product inside the nest. A three-metre safety zone around the nest was marked out with a warning tape left in place until the next day’s control visit.
The next morning, before the daycare opened, the check confirmed the total absence of activity. The nest was carefully removed, the shrub having been preserved intact. The surrounding branches have been lightly treated with a repellent product to discourage any attempt to reoccupy the site, which retains pheromones that are attractive to queens in search of a location.
Preventive advice and sustainable safety for the yard
After the intervention, our technician carried out a complete inspection of the yard and the rear façade of the house. Several points of vigilance have been identified: gaps under the roof eaves, a poorly covered compost area near the fence, and a few cavities in the posts of the wooden fence. These elements were reported to the manager of the daycare with practical recommendations adapted to a day-to-day management budget. A personalized pest prevention plan was provided, including a seasonal checklist to be completed each spring before the yard reopens for the summer.
Dense vegetation is both an aesthetic asset for a daycare yard and a risk factor for the nesting of social insects. Regular maintenance of hedges and shrubs, especially pruning dense indoor areas where light does not penetrate, significantly reduces the number of nesting locations. In addition, an outdoor insect treatment at the beginning of the season can be considered as a preventive measure on the fence and wooden structures.
Similar cases in establishments open to the public are documented in our portfolio, particularly in this project in a dense residential environment and in this case treated in a property with a landscaped courtyard. As a certified exterminator on the South Shore and South Shore, Nova Extermination intervenes quickly and rigorously in all environments where the safety of occupants is the top priority, with methods adapted to the most sensitive environments.