Anyone noticed large, somewhat darker colored yellow jackets around your homes? If so, these are queens looking for places to nest. There are several home made traps one can make. One I use is a simple tripod with a piece of string and a piece of fish hanging about one inch above a dish of soapy water. The queen will take a piece of the fish then dip as she flies away, usually hitting the water where she will struggle and drown. I caught my first one today. An easy solution to a big problem in summer.
We don't have a lot of annoying insects in my area, but yellowjackets are one we do have a lot of.
In late summer it's difficult to eat a non-vegan meal outside.
I have used a similar method with a pan of water and cat food spread on a board like shown in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng-ylBN43PA
My wife has been using a dust buster to vacuum up red wasps around one of her container plants. It’s easy and she actually enjoys doing it.
I was battling those this weekend. They are eating up my porch. Little piles of sawdust everywhere. I coated the eaves with wasp/hornet spray b/c that's what I had on hand, but after a while they were back again. I will try the Demon WP. I've heard filling the holes with aluminum foil balls sealed in with wood putty keeps them from coming back to an old one.
A friend had pileated woodpeckers nearly destroy a wall of his barn digging out carpenter bee larvae.
My nephew uses a whiffle ball bat.
I generally don't mind critters, insects included, so long as they aren't posing a threat or destroying my property. Obviously carpenter bees destroy property. But there is also something supremely aggravating - that triggers a level of stewing and personal animosity - about seeing those little saw dust piles and hearing those fat b*stards munching away inside my porch edging. Oh, and the way they hover in the air right in front of you like little buzzing blimps...don't get me started!
Yes! and I have such mixed feelings b/c I want to kill every one of them while at the same time need them to pollinate my garden. Conundrum! That's why I would prefer a spray that deters them and not kill them. BUT piles of sawdust do bring thoughts of insecticide.
That is why I hate yellow jackets. Unlike wasps, who leave no doubt of their intent, yellow jackets do that side to side dance right in your face.
And here I was expecting a thread about Stephon Marbury . . . . .
"Amazing what a minute can do."
An unnamed moderator sent me a PM this afternoon about this very topic...
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[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
The carpenter bee traps are very effective this year...stacking the little SOBs up! No murder hornets though. At least not yet. At least one of my trees has lantern flies though...
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