Hi All,
I noticed that my back yard rafters have about 10 wasps nests across them.
And, I notice a lot of wasps on my plants too.
They are not aggressive and leave me alone.
Are these guy doing me any good? Are they eating pests? Or farming pests, like aphids? Don't see any aphids.
Question: they are pretty easy to kill. Leave them alone or exterminate?
Presumably, the amount of nests has to do with close proximity to a food source. Correct?
Many thanks,
-T
These work - for a small-ish area somewhat protected from driving wind & rain - like a porch or patio.
They're made of very thin material - will only last 1 or 2 years. No chemicals ; not killing the insects - just asking them nicely to nest elsewhere. John T.
They are beneficial in killing other insects and pollinating plants. My only concern would be the increased size of those nests. Often, they can become so huge, they become a greater nuisance.
I'd kill the bastards.
Easiest way to get rid of wasps is to wait till it's dark at night, then spray them with insect killer. They wont attack you at night. I have never known any good from them. As far as I'm concerned, they are nothing but trouble and I kill all of them. More than once I have been stung by them and eliminating them, removes them from my space.
Once they are sprayed and dead, knock down their nests.
I leave the paper wasps alone but brush down the nests. I've never been bitten by one. Yellow jackets have bitten me several times. I kill them and their nests.
I use a powerful red led flashlight (bugs can't see red) and spray them with a mixture of seventh generation dish liquid adn water. They drop like flies. Then again in two days, to kill those that hatch.
Yup. Once you understand a little about them they are easy to deal with. First, find the guard. There will be one wasp on guard duty, the rest are really ignoring you. If you engage that guy with eye contact and do not really take a swat at him. You can knock the nest down with your hand. Just get the hell out of there when you do. Five feet away is usually plenty. That is paper wasps tho, not any kind of bee or hornet (yellow jackets are hornets). They are a totally different animal.
What flavor of wasps? Some feed insects to the larvae, others go for nectar.
Technically yellowjackets and hornets are both wasps but yellowjackets aren't hornets. To further confuse the issue the bald-faced hornet is a yellowjacket (Dolichovespula) not a hornet.(Vespa).
The yellowjackets build nests in my pickup and they've stung me so it's total war. This time of year the bald-faced are wrapping up their life cycle and are hanging around the hummingbird feeder drinking sugar water. They've never stung me so I let the birds deal with them. The bald-faces are carnivores earlier in the cycle and I've never seen them around the hummingbird feeder before mid-August. The yellowjackets ignore it although if I'm eating outside they'll sometimes try to help themselves.
Can't tell. :'(
A black widow decided to take up right in the middle of my subi. I cracked a door and filled the cabin with chrysanthemum spray. Then let it cook over the weekend with the windows rolled up. Problem solved.
Wasps are not aggressive at all. Usually you get stung when you sit on one or something. Bees and hornets are far more protective of their nests tho. Still people usually get stung by bees when they step on them barefooted or something.
I was hiking in the southern AZ desert when I passed a group of hives. it sounds strange but there are a number of trees and other plants that bloom and people will put the hives out to take advantage. Mesquite honey isn't bad.
Anyway I don't think i came any closer than 100' when I was attacked. Must have been Mexicanized bees.
Brexit.
This is the problem, they are confusing wasps with hornets, even saying they are the same. When I talk about wasps, I mean paper wasps who are very distinctive and easy to tell apart from yellow jackets and hornets.
On 25 Aug 2018, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in alt.home.repair:
I googled around a bit and I see yellowjackets classified as both wasps and hornets. The distinction doesn't seem to be clear, even to pest controllers.
Yellowjackets can be a problem in my area. One year they were everywhere and very aggressive - they would harass us when we tried to eat outdoors on our deck. I figured they were nesting somewhere nearby but I couldn't figure out where until early fall when the trees dropped some of their leaves and I discovered a nest up about 15 feet that was bigger than a basketball. I tried knocking it down by throwing an old tennis shoe at it, but it surrounded the branch and was very hard to break up. I got a big chunk of it down and within a day they had rebuilt almost as big as before. The shoe got stuck in the tree and the yellowjackets viciously attacked it as a swarm! I eventually got the nest down and killed most of them. I later discovered another nest underground that I suspect had split off from the first hive.
I didn't see many for a couple of years, then last year they started to make a resurgence. One day I was doing yardwork and I disturbed a mound of soil I had piled up several months before. Turns out Yellowjackets had built a nest inside of it and they came after me. I only got two stings but they were very painful. They moved out of that nest and I haven't seem many since, but I suspect they're not far away and will be back eventually.
The taxonomy is clear but colloquial usage isn't.
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