Any help with wasp removal.

I would spray the nest with wasp killer. Wait until early evening and spray from a distance. Raid makes a wasp and hornet killer that can be sprayed from 22 feet away. It also has residual effects, to kills the wasps that return to the nest after you have sprayed. The spray will not hurt the rose.

We keep a can of that wasp spray by each door of the house. It's my personal defense weapon! I got stung after grabbing wasp nests while weeding 3 times last year. My husband keeps a flashlight by the door to use with the wasp spray since the problem crops up so often. The flashlight is good for defense, too. So far, though, the only predators we've had to fight off have been wasps, and skunks getting into the cat food.
And seriously, the wasp spray is good for disabling would-be robbers.

Dish detergent mixed in a spray bottle will kill them also.

But much more slowly and at closer range.

Well, you can put it in a pump sprayer and it goes about as far, and it works pretty darn fast. I have yet to be stung using it.

Cindi ... does that wasp spray hurt the plant ?

Don't know if I am pointing out the obvious here but some wasp sprays are toxic for plants so make sure you have the right spray.

Cross posted with you Lyn. Just googled: anything with the active ingredient pyrethroid is toxic. see:http://homeguides.sfgate.com/wasp-spray-not-harm-bushes-100503.html

I've used Raid Wasp & Hornet Killer for years on the nests under the eaves of my home (above shrubs) and the nests built directly in shrubs in the flower beds, and not one plant has ever shown any ill effects.

If you have hornets or yellowjackets it is best to be rid of them but paper wasps as you have are rarely aggressive and I have worked around them both in the a garden atmosphere and while painting houses.

I once tried cutting off the branch that held a bald-face hornet nest when I was working at the Minnesota zoo and we had wasp nests, several types, all over the zoo grounds some of which had to be eradicated as they were harassing paying patrons.
One hornet came charging out, he was as fast as greased lighting, bounced off of my chest and left without stinging.
I decided to let bygones be bygones.
My boss said that was a good idea.

Wow Lyn, I never even thought to ask if the hornet spray could hurt the plant. We spray well after dark so as to make sure the hornets are all in the nest, and then we cut out the whole branch with the nest the next morning. Spraying after dark is a way to assure no bees are affected also. So I guess it does hurt the plant in the sense that I am cutting a section of it out in order to remove a sprayed nest!!!
I am terribly allergic to most stinging insects. I couldn't use my right hand and arm for 2 weeks last summer after 1 sting. My knuckle was severely bruised when we removed my ring right after the sting, before much swelling had started. Even though I'm strongly anti-chemical, pro-critter, I don't want to have to use the epi pen ever again. We have 4 honey bee hives, various wild bees, mud daubers, wood bees, huge cicada wasps, and all of those agree to coexist peacefully. We have some black and blue wasps and hornets that are downright aggressive. You can't get anywhere near their nest without being attacked. The yellowjackets here at least have to be provoked before they attack. Not so with our hornets. I'll look for my insect book where I marked the exact ones that were a problem, see if I can come up with the correct names.

A couple of years ago I had a ground bee nest behind the fence near one of my roses and they would get agitated every time I got near that rose. I didn't get close enough to determine what kind of bee they were since they were on the slope side of the fence.

I decided the rose was on its own for the season, because the bees move their next every season, and just placed the sprinkler under the rose at night to water it and didn't bother to dead head it that year.

The rose was fine and so was I. I just let the bees have their nest. It wasn't worth trying to get up on the slope and trying to find the nest to get rid of them.

So far, I haven't had to worry about hornets. We do have them, but they haven't built a nest on my property.

It sounds like your ground bees were yellow jackets.
Yellow jackets do defend their nest aggressively.

When I worked at the zoo a fellow worker I were both wearing shorts while we mowed lawn.
He started jumping around like a puppet, so while laughing I walked over and asked what his problem was.
He said the wasps were stinging him as he mowed, so I checked where he was mowing, the grass was not very long.
He had been going directly over a yellow jacket nest.
He said if you think this is so funny you mow here.

I finished for him by simply not going over the nest or mowing within two feet of it.
The humming of the mower even when not over the nest had them come out and fly in circles but I never got stung.
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As a side note: Today while fixing a garden hose, I picked up the knife I used to cut the hose.
It felt like there was debris between my hand and the handle so I dropped it and picked it up again.
I looked as I dropped it a paper type wasp flew out of the palm of my hand without stinging me.

It could have been yellow jackets. I wasn't about to climb up on the slope to find out. As far as I was concerned, they could have the rose for the season. As long as the rose got watered, it was going to live. I had no need to defend my territory. They did ...

I guess if the nest had been next to a door or a pathway, I might have felt differently, but I can share ...

There are red and brown paper wasps here that tend to be aggressive. A house mate was outside and felt something on her ear and brushed it with her hand thinking it was her hair. It was a red wasp and it stung her face when she brushed it away. She ran around the yard and it chased her, then she ran in the house and it followed! She was running from room to room with that thing in hot pursuit! Finally we knocked it out of the air with a fly swat and squashed it. I'd put it in the garbage and ran some errands, then came home and found it crawling out of the garbage- it was like the terminator wasp!

Thankfully I've never had them build nests in the garden, only on structures. Bad enough, but at least I haven't had to be concerned with the wasp killer damaging plants.

I know I have read that yellow jackets die off during the winter and the nest is not rebuilt but a new one is built every year and only the queen survives the winter. However I have seen and read about huge yellow jacket nests being dug up by bulldozers and I have seen the video of the 6 foot tall yellow jacket nest found in Florida. I don't think those huge nests could possibly have been built in a year or even a few years. I can't account for how the nests get so large, but I think it best to destroy them while the nest is still small and not give them a chance to get huge with thousands or tens of thousands of stinging yellow jackets.

Larry, I imagine they don't die out in winter in Florida. Perhaps they remain active all year there. A population like that could kill a person!

I found this old new clip about huge nest found in my part of the country several years ago.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/...

They do die out within a year up here in the mountains in my part of California ... thank God. I've had a few nests in rather inconvenient places.

One year I had yellow jackets build a nest behind the flashing behind my front door. Of course, I found out the hard way. I went out and slammed the screen door and they came after me and got in my hair. I ran down the road screaming as I tried to unbraid my hair to get them OUT ... a neighbor helped me. That night, I used my pump sprayer and sprayed the whole door and siding with vinegar and they moved the nest. I guess they didn't like the smell of the vinegar.

It was a nasty experience. I wouldn't use vinegar on a plant, but I've used it on the house and my wood pile for spiders and it has been quite effective.