Wasp Control
By Peder Hoyum
Identification
Wasps, like yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets, are both around a ½ inch in length The yellow jackets are yellow and black in color, and the bald-faced hornets are black and white. Solitary wasps have much longer bodies and a wide variety of colors.
Yellow Jacket
Hornet
Solitary Wasp
If there is a more effective way to ruin a perfectly good picnic than a visit from an overly friendly wasp, I don't know what it is. This applies to pale-skinned, English-speaking non-Catholics as well as the stinging insects—however, this article is wholly concerned with the latter. As a beekeeper, I am fascinated by social insects; these are insects that live together in a hierarchical grouping such as honey bees, eusocial wasps, ants, and termites. There are over a 100,000 species of wasps. For our purposes, they can be divided into two groups: social and solitary. Wasps can be useful in controlling the populations of other insects, and they are an important part of the ecosystem.
Controlling Wasps
What kind of wasp is it? If the nest is big and papery, it is probably a social wasp like a hornet or yellow jacket. Social wasps are the most dangerous and aggressive kind of wasp. They have a queen who lays eggs, which are usually sterile females; upon hatching they form the workforce of the hive. It is important that you do not confuse bees and wasps; it is easy to tell the difference. The most obvious difference is that bees are hairy; the hair is used to collect pollen, something social wasps do not do. Solitary wasps are longer and skinnier and tend to live a "solitary" life, building little mud or paper nests, not bothering anybody—that is unless you bother them.
Remove all food sources. Depending on the season, social wasps will be attracted to different kinds of foods. In the spring and early summer they are going to be looking for protein; this means your kitchen waste, manure, and dead animals. You can keep this to a minimum by making sure your garbage can is sealed. If you are composting your kitchen waste, keep turning it over, thereby burying the newer additions. This will not only reduce wasp populations, but also many other annoying pests—such as flies. Later in the summer, they will be looking for more carbohydrate-based foods; this means sugars, fruits, soft drinks, hummingbird feeders, and fruit trees.
Use barriers to keep wasps away. If wasps are getting into your house, you need to figure out their entrance point and seal it up. Check around your screened windows for holes, or separated wood framing. They could just as well be sitting by your door waiting for you to open it and slip inside. Is your picnic table being haunted by hornets? Consider buying a screened tent or picnic canopy that will fit around your eating area. There is a product I have seen available for lining areas of concern, such as your eaves or soffits which is called insect mesh. It will deter wasps from building their nests there, and keep them (and other insects) from entering your house through exposed wood.
Control wasps with wasp traps. They work in a similar fashion to most insect traps, i.e., there is bait and a funnel-like structure that leads to a death chamber. There is a pretty simple DIY version out there, and building it just involves cutting off the top one-third of a lidless two-liter soda bottle and inverting it into the bottom of the bottle. You can use staples or string to join the two halves together, but aside from that, the construction is done. Bait with something sweet and sticky or a stinky protein source (decomposing meat) in the spring season. Add water mixed with a dash of dish soap to the bottom of the bottle and place in the wasp problem area.
Use poison sprays to kill wasps dead. Nests in trees or in the eaves of houses will require a projectile spray that can reach 20 feet or so. It is best to wait until the air is cool. Stand a safe distance back and start spraying the nest, aiming for the entrance on the bottom. Leave once the nest is saturated. Check back after a day to ensure that all activity has ceased in the nest. If not, reapply. When dealing with wasps inside walls, professionals will use an air duster with a powder like Sevin. It will stick around in the air and make its way up into the nest or settle on the surfaces between the nest and the exit.
Removing a Wasp Nest Safely
If you have any doubts, please call a professional exterminator. Wasps can be very dangerous and could kill you. If you're convinced that you want to do this, you are going to need some gear:
- A bee suit. Buy one or fashion one out of mosquito netting and coveralls; try to make sure you are closing off all means of entrance such as your pant legs with duct tape or elastic. Keep the netting away from your skin, as the hornets will likely sting right through it—with ferocity.
- A plastic bag inside a landing net. This will come in handy to catch the hive if you are working alone. Once inside the bag you will want to close it immediately!
- A branch trimmer or scraping tool. You will need something to knock the hive into the bag, or cut the branch to which it is attached. Remember that whatever it is attached to goes in the bag too, so make sure it will fit and won't puncture holes in it before all of the wasps are dead.
- A plan. So, now you have a bag of pissed-off hornets—what are you going to do with it? Assuming they don't escape from the bag, they will suffocate eventually. But I would suggest spraying some kind of wasp-killing spray into the bag and then closing it back up.
- The best time to remove a hive is during the cooler and darker parts of the day. At dawn or at dusk is the ideal time as the wasps will be more likely in their hives keeping warm than out flying missions.
Natural Wasp Control
Sting treatment. Although wasps and bees are related and share the ability to sting, a honey bee is limited by the fact that their stinger will often stay in the victim's skin when they fly away. Not so with wasps. They can sting repeatedly. If you are stung, remove yourself from the situation, wash the area with soap and water, take an antihistamine, and put ice on the sting. If there are a lot of stings or if you are allergic, use an EpiPen and seek medical help immediately.
A scarecrow for wasps. Another product I have seen around town is called the Waspinator. Evidently wasps have a natural instinct to stay clear of other wasps' nests. The idea is that we can hang up the Waspinator, a gray nylon drawstring bag, which, when puffed out and hung from a branch, does resemble a hornet nest.
Boiling water. If the wasps that you wish to dispatch are ground dwelling, such as the yellow jacket, and you don't care to use the potentially hazardous chemicals found in wasp killer spray. Locate the entrance to the nest and dump as much boiling water as you can carry onto the nest in the evening or early morning when they are the least active.