arrrgh wasps - help!

[Karol]

could you shut up the hive and move it a few feet for a few days, place a new hive on the old spot with some jam inside it and place a false floor in it covered in sticky rat and mouse glue...

all the wasps that know about it bound to get caught in it after a day you'd think.


Darren

Possibly. It could achieve the same result. I guess the only way to find out would be to try. You'd need to be sure that no bees went in and there's potentially the problem of dealing with the glue afterwards?

 

[biglongdarren]

just get a piece of cardboard the same size as the floor inside and when finished lift out and throw it in the bin.
Darren

 

[merylvingien]

You'd need to be sure that no bees went in and there's potentially the problem of dealing with the glue afterwards?

Yea best to be safe and buy a wasp trap eh?

 

[biglongdarren]

am sticking with my idea...see what i done there
Darren

 

[Hivemaker.]

just get a piece of cardboard the same size as the floor inside and when finished lift out and throw it in the bin.
Darren

Darren, do you have links to any scientific research that this method of getting rid of the glue would work.

 

[biglongdarren]

i have run a few tests myself and 90% of the time it works every time,

Darren

 

[biglongdarren]

but then i live right by the sea so that might have alot to do with my findings!
Darren

 

[merylvingien]

Darren, do you have links to any scientific research that this method of getting rid of the glue would work.

Well cmon, its getting a bit silly isnt it, a determined sales pitch i will give him that, but common sense will tell you whats right and whats wrong.
Its been a bad year for wasps, so i wont judge Karol for pushing things to the limit, but when it all gets a bit silly you have to take a step back and ask the question what is the simplest answer to a question.
Nature is very good at this.

 

[Karol]

Well cmon, its getting a bit silly isnt it, a determined sales pitch i will give him that, but common sense will tell you whats right and whats wrong.
Its been a bad year for wasps, so i wont judge Karol for pushing things to the limit, but when it all gets a bit silly you have to take a step back and ask the question what is the simplest answer to a question.
Nature is very good at this.

As a pest controller who 'specializes' in the eradication of wasp nests using pesticides it's not difficult to understand why you might need to diss integrated wasp management which employs different pesticide free techniques and values wasps as an important beneficial insect.

For the record, I haven't 'pitched' for anything on the open forum. The fact that you know me from somewhere else allows you to conflate/read things that way.

Anyway, you have the floor. Good luck in helping those beeks who wish to save their hives and when the problem really kicks off in the next few weeks I hope you'll be able to give them some constructive advice other than leaving it to nature or indeed informing us that wasps have noses!

Any beeks who need help with respect to problem wasps are more than welcome to contact me off line.

 

[shrekfeet]

so here's my plan, this morning entrance blocked. This evening move hive, it may not be exactoly 3 miles but a good distance. Leave hive entrance restrictor in place so that any new wasp that finds the hive has to go down a long tunnel which apparently they don't like. Feed the colony and hope for the best. If this one dies out I may well sell up and forget the whole thing. Three hive set ups, 108 jars and labels, honey bucket etc all for 20 jars of honey in 3 years is not really my kind of hobby, maybe i'll come back to it when I retire but quite frankly i'm just too busy for all this crap! Glad I didn't invest in an extractor

 

[tkwinston4]

so here's my plan, this morning entrance blocked. This evening move hive, it may not be exactoly 3 miles but a good distance. Leave hive entrance restrictor in place so that any new wasp that finds the hive has to go down a long tunnel which apparently they don't like. Feed the colony and hope for the best. If this one dies out I may well sell up and forget the whole thing. Three hive set ups, 108 jars and labels, honey bucket etc all for 20 jars of honey in 3 years is not really my kind of hobby, maybe i'll come back to it when I retire but quite frankly i'm just too busy for all this crap! Glad I didn't invest in an extractor

Don't get too down about it all shrekfeet. We all have our crap years and then we have a good year which makes up for the crap year.
You are doing everything you can and none of what has happened has been your fault so don't blame yourself.
The sniping on this forum can get a bit much sometimes but don't let them put you off, they are all harmless really. Just beekeepers getting narky because winter is on the way!
Out of interest where in Hampshire are you? If you are close-ish to me and this hive does not make it, I will give you one of my colony's next year (providing both of mine at home make it through the winter).
Cheer up and try to keep smiling x

 

[Firefly]

Well said tkwinston4

Both the lovely colonies I had last year came out of the winter producing nothing but drones

A kind friend gave me a small colony he was planning to combine, which I split in the middle of the year and now again have 2 healthy looking colonies going into this winter. Considering the year, I'm very pleased with that

Hang in there shrekfeet. We all know next year will be better

 

[Easy Beesy]

So when one wasp finds a static food source it flies back to its nest and communicates the location of that food source (to the millimeter) to its colleagues who then fly exactly to that food source.

Hi karol
Can I ask how they communicate location? A form of wasp waggle dance? Only a leading lecturer recently said that humans and honey bees are the only creatures on earth that can communicate location WITHOUT showing or leading others to the location.
Cheers

 

[Karol]

So when one wasp finds a static food source it flies back to its nest and communicates the location of that food source (to the millimeter) to its colleagues who then fly exactly to that food source.

Hi karol
Can I ask how they communicate location? A form of wasp waggle dance? Only a leading lecturer recently said that humans and honey bees are the only creatures on earth that can communicate location WITHOUT showing or leading others to the location.
Cheers

There are scholarly papers that discuss this subject. Here's one link which confirms that wasps 'waggle'.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994276/

I have video clips of wasps communicating with each other using wing vibration (and a bit of a waggle) around food but this is affirmation of colleague recognition, i.e. part of team 'swarm' feeding behaviour. I don't sadly have any footage of the waggle dance from within a nest.

Hope that helps.

 

[honeybee71]

Try making wasp traps out of empty jam jars or coffee jars,by putting a small amount of old jam and a little water mixed together,and not forgetting to put the lid back on with a centimeter hole on top. More traps the better. Good luck.

 

[MartinL]

Try making wasp traps out of empty jam jars or coffee jars,by putting a small amount of old jam and a little water mixed together,and not forgetting to put the lid back on with a centimeter hole on top. More traps the better. Good luck.

Then place the traps where your hive was before you moved it.
Cold and calculated revenge!