Last summar/fall, I was absolutely overrun with yellow jackets and had to buy some traps. Caught hundreds of them, but that was just treating the symptoms (could only locate/destroy 1 out of who-knows-how-many hives).
The trick is to catch the queens in the spring, and my reusable trap has caught two so far. That’s two hives I don’t have to worry about this summer.
Any suggestions on good traps to use, where to put them and how to be allowed to open your door in the summer?
I like the bees, I don’t mind a few wasps. My wife’s been stung twice so far and my son once and it’s barely Spring.
The wasp wars continue.
I bought one of these from my local hardware store last year, and it’s been great. Amazon Link for Example
The instructions say to place it like 20 feet from where you suspect there’s a hive if you’re dealing with an established nest. You’ll also want it a fair bit away from where people go since it will attract them, and they don’t always go immediately into it and tend to swarm around it.
This spring, I’ve just been moving the trap around every few days to catch the queens. They’re out foraging and starting to build nests, so I rotated through the spots near to where I suspected there were nests last year.
Since I made this post, I’ve caught 3 more. Those 3 were in the same day, and it was after I moved the trap into the tree by the front porch.
Update: Got 2 more today. I was going to move it, but I’ll prob wait until I go 1-2 days with any new captures.
Perfect reminder for me to check my traps.
They’re rough on dry years. A couple years ago I must have found 20 nests, some the hard way. I was almost getting used to getting stung.
Yep. Last summer was super dry (my poor lawn lol), and had way more yellow yackets than I can ever recall. If this summer is dry, too, hoping my preventative actions will help.
Resistance is futile
