European Hornet Control in Comfort, TX
People in Comfort, TX go looking for European hornets after a big brown-and-yellow wasp startles them, maybe thumping against a lit window after dark or slipping out of a crack in an old wall. Here is the straight answer: none of the Texas A&M sources we rely on place this hornet in Texas, so the insect you saw is very likely one of the large native wasps. Start with a photo and an identification. For help with either, or with a nest near the house, call or text (210) 281-1064, or book online.
What the Texas records show #
Texas A&M AgriLife's wasp bulletin names a single "hornet" for the state, and it isn't this one: it is the baldfaced hornet (AgriLife E-239). The Texas Apiary Inspection Service agrees.
The European species came to North America in the mid-1800s and has crept westward since. NC State Extension traces it as far as Louisiana and the Dakotas, and Penn State dates the first Arkansas report to 1999. A 2025 paper by David Bowles gathered the records west of the Mississippi. Nearly all of them came from the Ozark region and the eastern edge of Oklahoma, plus a few one-off specimens from scattered states, and none came from Texas. Bowles thinks summer heat may be the limit, since the hornet dies at 44 °C.
Five look-alikes worth ruling out #
- Cicada killer: about an inch and a half, reddish front half, black-and-yellow rear, amber wings, digging small holes in lawns during summer. See cicada killers in Comfort.
- Yellowjacket queen: AgriLife describes her as large and mostly orange, dwarfing the half-inch workers. See the yellowjacket page.
- Red paper wasp: rusty brown, close to an inch, tending an open comb under an overhang.
- Baldfaced hornet: black-and-white, with a gray paper nest hung in a tree.
- Pigeon horntail: big and colored like a hornet, but thick through the middle with no wasp waist, and it has no sting.
For comparison, Penn State says a European hornet worker reaches about an inch, with a reddish head and thorax and a yellow-dominated abdomen. In places where it lives, it is one of the few wasps that flies at night and gathers at porch lights.
Old walls in an old town #
Comfort's building stock runs old. The Texas Historical Commission's atlas lists a boundary increase for the Comfort Historic District, dated August 25, 2004, with a footprint that touches Highway 27, Linder Avenue and Cypress Creek and period bands that begin in 1850 (THC Atlas). Where European hornets are established, extension sources say they like hollow trees, and they will also move into barns, attics and the cavities inside walls, the sort of spaces older buildings provide.
In Comfort, a colony humming inside an old wall almost certainly belongs to something else. AgriLife notes that yellowjackets now and then build inside wall voids, and it lists siding knot holes and chimneys without caps as common honey bee doorways. Whatever is in there, leave the outside opening alone while the colony is alive. Blocked-in hornets and yellowjackets can chew their way into the living space instead.
Getting a positive ID #
- Photograph the insect from a few feet back, with a coin or ruler nearby for scale.
- Write down when it shows up: midday on flowers, digging in soil, or circling lights after dark.
- Describe the nest if you've found one: open comb, paper ball, ground hole or wall gap.
Kendall County hosts a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension office that can look at your photos (county Extension office), and a licensed technician can sort it out on site.
Pest Trappers' role when a "hornet" turns up in Comfort #
We don't advertise European hornet removal in Comfort, since nothing on record puts the insect in Texas. Instead, the technician pins down which wasp you actually have, tracks down the nest if there is one, and tells you plainly whether it needs treating. When it does, you hear the options first, and any product is used the way its label requires. Pest Trappers LLC (TPCL #0887549) is family-owned, and pricing follows the inspection. The European hornet guide goes deeper, and the Comfort page covers local services.