Last summer hornets built a nice big nest on our house. I got stung once and it was enough to keep me far far away for the rest of the season. We could have sprayed them but honestly, after that sting, it felt risky. Neither my husband nor I wanted to go anywhere near them. Instead, we opted to just leave them be and let Ohio’s winter do the work for us.
This spring, after the weather warmed up and we were more than positive the hornets were long gone, we knocked the nest down. I picked it up, fully intending to take it over to my compost pile but my brain screamed “CRAFT SUPPLY!” Hornets build their nest out of saliva and wood pulp. The result is layers and layers of a beautiful papery material. Truly, when I saw it up close, there was no way I could just toss it on the compost.
So, I did what any rational human would do and brought it inside. I shook the nest upside down, from which a few deceased hornets fell out, and removed the nest cells from inside. While all the hornets were dead, there still seemed to be a large number of other small insects. I have a house filled with taxidermy, and pinned insects so bringing weird little live bugs like that inside is not great. I bagged everything up and popped it into the freezer to kill off anything remaining.
The one craft I knew I wanted to do from the start was to make a shadow box containing nest cells, the hornets and the gorgeous papery nest material. I rehydrated the hornets and posed them as I wanted. I used spray adhesive to attach the paper to the cardboard of my shadow box and then glued the nesting cells to that. It took basically no time at all but was so much fun to make. Not to mention, it makes a rad addition to my collection of ‘oddities’!
My two favorite details in this project are both easily overlooked! One is the hornet that died while emerging from its cell. He’s just peeking out! Second is the addition of two tiny insects that I found in the nest cell (literally the reason I threw everything in the freezer to begin with!) When I pulled the cells out of the ziplock bag and shook them out, it rained tiny bugs. It was… gross and further proved that it was a really good idea to freeze everything but now dead, they pose no threat. I felt like it’d be really cool to glue a few into the cells since they were a part of this whole thing as well. They’re quite small but if you look closely at the image below you can spot one in the center of the photo.
▲ Looking to get into pinning insects – check out this blog post I wrote with tons of resources, links + info! ▲ Check out my other hornet’s nest project inside the box for my four leaf clover collection!