Reminds me of a friend of mine who discovered one of these nests in the dead of wintertime and decided he was going to cut the nest down and place it as a decoration in his living room next to his collection of deer heads and fish trophies. Well he successfully cut the nest down and inspected it very carefully... and when he saw no hornets at all over about an hours time while the nest was outside... he came to the conclusion that the nest had surely been abandoned. He then proceeded to hang the nest in his living room... and after marveling at his new found trophy for only a few minutes... he and his wife left to go about whatever their plans were for that evening. When they came home later and entered their home... to their total surprise... the nest had warmed up and the hornets apparently came out of their dormant state. They said they saw... not hundreds... but closer to a thousand paper hornets swarming in their living room and aggressively attacking everything in sight that moved.