Wasp traps

Been looking online for tips on making wasp traps.

Most seem to favour lemonade bottle with coke/fanta in the bottom to attract the wasps.

Just wondered if anyone has had success with above method. Or any tips of your own?

large coke or mineral water bottles....simply cut of top and invert cone shape into remaining bottle and seal with duct tape.....i made a couple up the other day with some coke and a little jam, they showed no interest as yet. so made another with a piece of salmon covered by a little water, by the afternoon of hot sun cooking it had started to work

I buy a little entrance that fits into any plastic bottle. They are brilliant. When full remover the entrance, the bottle reseals and you throw it away and start again.
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enrico said:

I buy a little entrance that fits into any plastic bottle. They are brilliant. When full remover the entrance, the bottle reseals and you throw it away and start again.
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Where do you buy them?

these kind of traps just attract more wasps to the area - why would you want to do that?
Strong, well looked after colonies don't need our help in coping with wasps.

Of course, you could do what one clown on this forum does - spend all day skipping around the apiary wielding a portable hoover to suck up all the wasps

Amari said:

Where do you buy them?

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https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-x-Wasp...547232?hash=item363708a460:g:Ha4AAOSwHUhaH9jF
Try this
Helps keep the numbers down for enjoying the garden too.......not everything about bees!!!!
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jenkinsbrynmair said:

these kind of traps just attract more wasps to the area - why would you want to do that?
Strong, well looked after colonies don't need our help in coping with wasps.

Of course, you could do what one clown on this forum does - spend all day skipping around the apiary wielding a portable hoover to suck up all the wasps

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Very house proud!!

enrico said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-x-Wasp...547232?hash=item363708a460:g:Ha4AAOSwHUhaH9jF
Try this
Helps keep the numbers down for enjoying the garden too.......not everything about bees!!!!
E

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Noticed that he has just put them up to £4.99 from£3.99 so he must have had a run on them!
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The power of a recommendation by Enrico....You should ask for commission.
I'll stick with upturned bottle neck traps if they start bothering me in my evening gin trap.

I also use upturned bottle traps and I have just got this months BBKA news through the door and there is an article about making a bottle trap for Asian Hornet monitoring.

Regards,

D

jenkinsbrynmair said:

these kind of traps just attract more wasps to the area - why would you want to do that?...

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This is my guess,

- wasps have scouts like bees, although maybe in larger proportions, if you can capture the scouts you can prevent the entire colony arriving in your apiary.

- ALSO early in the year, when wasp numbers are too low to be a problem even to weak nucs, etc. a steady moderate loss over the month on a daily basis will have a significant affect on the wasp numbers later in the year, again keeping their numbers low so as not to be a problem for weak nucs (I would imagine the main target for wasps and of concern here).

I think I must have several wasp nests in the area!

I've tried multiple trap types, jam jar with hole punched in tin foil 'lid' (this has caught five wasps with jam), plastic bottle with lower 1/3 blacked out with 1x3cm hole for wasps to fly in (this caught 10 wasps and 40 bees with old fermenting fruit, mainly banana skins) and the old faithful, top 1/3 of plastic bottle cut off and upturned. I've also tried cat food (good for blue-bottles), water jam & soap, jam & soap, jam, sugar, sugar & jam, white vinegar with fruit with jam with, etc. etc.

At present am trying Cider Vinegar and Peanut Butter - bottom line the hives just smell to good!

The wasps are actually attacking my bees with pollen on their legs (that's the one's they prefer, I think they're slower) in FLIGHT, as they try to land (and before you ask they're wasps, too small for hornets).

The battle of Little Big Apiary continues....

TooBee... said:

This is my guess,

- wasps have scouts like bees, although maybe in larger proportions, if you can capture the scouts you can prevent the entire colony arriving in your apiary.

- ALSO early in the year, when wasp numbers are too low to be a problem even to weak nucs, etc. a steady moderate loss over the month on a daily basis will have a significant affect on the wasp numbers later in the year, again keeping their numbers low so as not to be a problem for weak nucs (I would imagine the main target for wasps and of concern here).

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A guess - and a wild one.
They don't have scouts, although they do home in on a good food source when one finds it - you pop bottle traps are just that - a good food source, they are low efficiency, so only a small proportion of the wasps that go in to the trap stay there, the ones that get out go back to the nest, it returns later, followed by it's pals, notices the abundance of honey around thus a free for all begins.
Also, the wasps stuck in the trap emit a distress signal - therefore all it's mates turn up for the party.
As for the rest of your suppositions - nothing more than wishful thinking.

Hmm, so is the trick to put a wasp trap a distance away from the apiary? Trapping them before they get a whiff of the hive?

Or is that just wishful thinking?

TooBee... said:

- wasps have scouts like bees, .

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Nope, one of the mysteries of wasp is they haven't developed communication of food sources. At best a returnign wasps excites others that food is about but not where. Random searching, scent and sight means they mainly find a source by trial and error...but they do"remember" where it is.

Not so keen on the bottle traps as they catch too many big moth's which i do not like doing, in doing so they form a carpet for the wasps to land on and get there fill.. i prefare the wasp bane as it has smaller entrance tubes and once anything gets inside it is not coming back out regardless of how full it gets.. i have had the same one for three years now and it is still going strong..

Millet said:

Not so keen on the bottle traps as they catch too many big moth's which i do not like doing, in doing so they form a carpet for the wasps to land on and get there fill.. i prefare the wasp bane as it has smaller entrance tubes and once anything gets inside it is not coming back out regardless of how full it gets.. i have had the same one for three years now and it is still going strong..

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Any links for that?

BernardBlack said:

Any links for that?

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There you go..

https://www.waspbane.com/..

Thumbs up for Waspbane here. A bit pricey, but it does ensure the scout wasps don’t escape and return with all their mates. For best effect site downwind of apiary.

Codford said:

Thumbs up for Waspbane here. A bit pricey, but it does ensure the scout wasps don’t escape and return with all their mates. For best effect site downwind of apiary.

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Yep, same as, emptied ours out today and brought it home for refilling - leftover jam and cheapo lager at 60p a can