While wasps are beneficial in the agricultural world, they’re no welcome sight when it comes to your own backyard. These stinging insects can ruin picnics and interrupt outdoor activities for children and adults.
Regularly inspecting your property can help prevent wasp pest control. However, if you spot a nest in a high location (such as inside a wall cavity) it’s best to call a pest control professional.
Habitat
Despite their infamous reputation, wasps are important pollinators and pest control agents. They are also important predators of insects that can damage or consume crops.
Wasps are a diverse group of stinging insects with more than 30,000 different species. Some are solitary, consuming their own body fluids or hunting for prey while others live in social colonies with many members contributing to their survival. They are recognizable by their black and yellow colors and the ability to use a sharp stinger to defend themselves.
Paper wasps, yellow jackets and hornets build aerial nests in a variety of locations including trees, the eaves of roofs, decking or playground equipment. These nests are constructed of wood fibers gathered and chewed to form a paper-like structure. These nests tend to be most abundant in areas with ready access to food sources such as sweet liquids and scavenged fruit, vegetables and meat.
Like bees, wasps are primarily pollinators but they can also assist with crop protection. Solitary wasps may prey on insects and spiders that eat crop plants while female parasitic wasps utilize their long, needle-like ovipositor to insert eggs into the bodies of caterpillars, flies, beetles and other insect hosts. These wasps then kill the host and take over its body to lay their own eggs. Solitary wasps often visit flowering plants and transfer pollen grains to other flowers, although they are not as effective as bees at this task.
Food Sources
While they are effective pollinators, wasps’ appetite can also be problematic. The insects enjoy a variety of foods, including flowers, fruit, and meat. You can protect yourself and your home by covering all garbage, covering food outdoors, and sealing cracks around your property.
In general, wasps are solitary insect species that live alone and breed independently from each other. However, some wasps are social and live together in a colony that includes both males and females. These are the stinging wasps that can sting you when bothered.
These types of wasps hunt, paralyze, and eat other insects and then transfer the digested insect proteins to their developing larvae. They are especially prone to attacking and killing spiders. However, they can be very dangerous to pets and children.
Wasps can be particularly difficult to control in the garden. However, if the population is controlled, gardeners can benefit from the work wasps do. In the garden, the wasps’ piercing mouthparts enable them to destroy caterpillars, beetles, and other pests that can damage plants.
The good news is that you can prevent a wasp infestation by using natural wasp repellents. For example, you can use a combination of peppermint oil and other essential oils such as clove, geranium, lemongrass, and eucalyptus to spray around your property. Spray the mixture on a wasp’s nest, which can clog their spiracles and cause them to die.
Nesting Sites
Despite their poor public image as buzzing nuisances that can sting people with a single touch, most wasps play valuable roles in gardens and natural areas. Some are predators or parasitoids of pest insects and others pollinate flowers.
As queen wasps emerge from winter hibernation, they select suitable locations for new nests. Often, these will be in or near water, in outdoor structures such as sheds, barns and houses, or under bridges and in wooded areas. Some species of wasps, such as mud daubers and hornets, are cavity nesters and prefer to build their nests in hollow trees or walls of other buildings. Other social wasps make paper nests and are typically found in eaves, attics, wall voids and other protected spaces.
All these different nest types look similar but differences in size, shape and location can help us identify the wasp species. For example, paper wasps build open nests that resemble upside down umbrellas and have a spongy structure with hexagonal cells that appear as if they are made from gray paper. They may add larger combs later in the season, but they will usually be abandoned in autumn.
Yellowjackets also create nests from paper, wood material and mud and are often found in rodent burrows or other protected sites, such as hollow tree trunks. These nests are more likely to cause a problem for homeowners and should only be removed by trained professionals.
Nest Removal
Wasps have a highly specialized stinger that can inject toxins into their victims. This, combined with their aggressive behavior and instinct to defend their nests, can make wasps dangerous pests for homeowners and businesses. They are more likely to sting than honey bees and will do so multiple times if provoked.
Before getting rid of a wasp nest, it is important to correctly identify the species of wasp that’s infesting the property. Using this information, the pest control technician can recommend the correct treatment method for the infestation. This can include cultural controls, exclusion, or sanitization to reduce the appeal of the property for wasps.
For outdoor wasp control services, it’s best to use a product such as Avesta CS that is labeled for a wide range of insects and can be safely used in the presence of people and pets. Spray the wasp nest during the night, when the majority of the wasps are asleep and less defensive. After spraying, wait a few hours to make sure all the wasps have died and the nest is safe to remove and destroy.
Larger wasp nests in the ground or in walls can be very dangerous to try and get rid of without professional help. Similarly, removing wasps from eaves and other high locations can be risky. It is best to leave this work to the professionals and wear proper protective equipment if you plan on attacking the problem yourself, such as a bee suit.
