College Street was shut on Thursday night to allow the Asian hornet team to get into the boughs of the turkey oak, which stands across the road from St James.
The nest was hidden 16m off the ground at the edge of the grounds of Elizabeth College.
It was slightly smaller than a basketball.
Invasive non-native species policy & coordination officer Francis Russell said his team had been working hard to find the elusive nest.
One hornet was spotted in the college pollinator patch in June, but all subsequent sightings were much further away. To complicate matters, the team was initially tracking the hornets to their primary nest, but when the hornets moved to the secondary nest in the turkey oak, they were now flying in the other direction.
Other hornets were also being tracked from an unrelated nest in La Gibauderie and so it took all the team’s skill and a bit of luck to find it.
The breakthrough came when when Mr Russell was able to add a piece of tinsel to a hornet and then followed it right up to the offending tree.
‘It is always more complicated having to track hornets in a built-up area and dealing with nests in town requires a lot more planning to ensure public safety,’ he said.
‘After receiving a number of reports and seeing photographs of hornets hovering over pints of beer at the Swan Inn and at The Terrace restaurant, we knew we were looking for a nest in town.’
Access to treat the nest required the services of Treevolution, which provided a cherry picker and a tree surgeon who has considerable experience in working with hornets.
Fortunately, this nest was discovered in good time to be safely destroyed before the college opens for the autumn term next week.
Mr Russell thanked the Civil Protection Volunteers for their help dealing with the closure and the traffic.
CPV officer Dave Hodge said a team of eight had been deployed.
‘The principal purposes were to ensure that the area was kept safe from pedestrians because once the nest has been actioned by the Asian hornet team, there’s always the risk that they can literally drop out of the sky onto people, which is why there’s an exclusion zone around the area,’ he said.
College Street was closed from about 6.15pm to 8pm.
The Asian hornet team is planning to remove the nest in La Gibauderie as soon as possible. They are also actively tracking nests in St Andrew’s around Bailiffs Cross, and in the Vale off Rue de Marais. There have also been sightings around Ruette de la Tour – the lane between the back of Saumarez Park and Cobo.
It is important the nests are found and removed before queens start being released, which is likely to be in late September.
Suspected sightings should be reported to asianhornet@gov.gg or by telephone on 01481 220110 or 07839 197082.