Deterring wasps

[The Poot]

But the plastic tube is only about 2cm in diameter and the lumen is obstructed by + shaped cross pieces. When you invert the chamber I find that the dead wasps won't shake out but get stuck in the lumen. I've therefore tried a short length of hose pipe with a clear lumen but because of the shape of the neck of the chamber, when the chamber is inverted the distal (the end of the pipe in the chamber) tip of the pipe is above the fluid level of the chamber's contents ie. the contents won't drain.

Sorry Amari, I forgot to mention, I cut the cross pieces out.

 

[Monbees]

If you keep the plastic tube supplied and not push it into the chamber, (as instructed!) you can keep the flaps open with it to empty it and start again.

I shall try that this year (assuming bad year for wasps, as it usually is for me) as it is very difficult to empty - I have to cut open the chamber with a stanley knife and make a big hole to tip the contents onto the compost heap. Then the destroyed chamber goes to landfill unfortunately.

 

[The Poot]

I shall try that this year (assuming bad year for wasps, as it usually is for me) as it is very difficult to empty - I have to cut open the chamber with a stanley knife and make a big hole to tip the contents onto the compost heap. Then the destroyed chamber goes to landfill unfortunately.

The most sure way is to find the nests and deal with them, if they’ve found the hives. Waspbanes are meant to be placed upwind of the apiary to catch the scouts, but
the wind tends to change direction
wasps from downwind can be attracted to the wasp bane and find the apiary on the way
Generally I leave the wasps alone unless they start entering or buzzing the hives - then it’s all out war.
Putting traps out for AH early Spring does catch a lot of queen wasps though.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yes, probably - reactive rather than proactive. Probably late August (hazy memory).

What gets me about the Waspbane is the cost of the refill - £17.30. Refill = lower plastic chamber and a box of their patent wasp-attractant powder.
https://www.thorne.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=wasps&product_id=2027
You might expect that when the chamber is full of wasps it would be easy to unscrew the chamber from the vertical 'chimney' and pour away the wasps and liquid and refill the chamber with a wasp attractant eg. beer, jam etc. But no: the entrance to the chamber is guarded by a one-way rubber valve so that you can't pour out the contents i.e. you have to throw it away and buy another @ £17.30

The answer is to remove the rubber valve, pour away the contents, and refill the chamber. However removing the valve is very difficult - I suspect it's glued in. I have managed it but it's a struggle

There are other high efficiency wasp traps on the market - and a heck of a lot cheaper, SWMBO bought a couple off Amazon last summer for only a few quid, I watched one for hours (it was on the patio) and not one wasp found its way out

 

[Karol]

For the record, WaspBane was designed exclusively for the professional pest control market to help protect public spaces. The safety features are there to protect members of the public and service providers. Wasps exact a massive toll on human health and drain resources from the NHS. Pest controllers have died providing wasp control services and pest controllers have ended up in hospital with life threatening anaphylaxis from cleaning out dead wasps from wasp pots. Persons who circumvent the safety features of the trap do so at their own risk.

The company does not actively pursue the bee keeping market but has philanthropically supported bee keeping in response to interest from bee keepers.

 

[gmonag]

I understand you want to protect yourselves from litigation but... really? I would have thought beekeepers were a substantial market share with any philanthropy from your company.

 

[Karol]

To put this into perspective. We have leisure industry clients who site more traps on a single site in a single day than all of the traps we sell directly to all of the UK's bee keepers. The sales that we make into bee keepers have been by word of mouth so all of our sales have been by product endorsement. We do not actively market the product into bee keeping. There are a couple of resellers who do.

Integrated wasp management is a taxing discipline. It takes between 10 and 12 hours to train pest controllers to be effective in wasp control and by that I mean in dealing with nuisance wasps in public spaces. That training is provided free of charge simply because we know that for every pest controller who adopts integrated wasp management as a core discipline it saves countless lives and hospitalizations.

I happen to have a soft spot for bees. My grandfather kept bees in Poland before the war. My father kept bees in the UK after the war. Sadly, my job which has me working all hours and my allergy to bee stings preclude me from keeping bees myself. So I do my bit for bees in other ways. The advice I give on integrated wasp management to bee keepers is freely given in good faith and I'm quite content and it's enough for me to know that I have helped protect and save a significant number of hives from wasps.

 

[Karol]

I understand you want to protect yourselves from litigation but... really?

I think you miss the point. Before litigation comes tragedy. It's the tragedy in human life and suffering that we actively work to safe guard against. Litigation whilst a consideration is not the main issue here.

I would have thought beekeepers were a substantial market share with any philanthropy from your company.

Not if the philanthropy isn't visible.

 

[Pembroke]

Not everyone hates wasps:

The Big Wasp Survey – Citizen Science = Wasp Love!

They suggest the ordinary, made from a pop bottle, trap with beer or orange juice as the bait.

 

[citrus]

@Karol well last year was enough for me and I going to give the waspbane a go

- for a single apiary (2-4 hives)
...what is the recommendation
- just get one of the bait chambers and one refill to last me from May ? til Oct ?

(appreciate it is hard to know how many wasps in any one season and any one area but I know that you sold out late last year so keen to make sure I have enough kit to get thru the year (do the refill's have an expiration date ?)

 

[Karol]

Hi Citrus,

I'll quite happily answer questions on wasp behaviour, integrated wasp management and generically on trapping but respectfully will decline to answer specific questions regarding WaspBane traps so as not to contravene the spirit of the forum viz promotion/advertising.

 

[citrus]

Fair enough Karol.

Can I ask the audience of waspbane users the same question as a workaround ?

....what do hobby keepers with a single apiary with 2-4 hives need for a season ?

 

[coffindodger]

I've used one with my two hives for the last two years and it does work at attracting and keeping in the wasps. I also use a mesh front guard for the hive entrances to stop wasps flying straight in. The biggest problem for me was choosing the best position for the waspbane as the wind direction guidance is difficult to follow due to the location of the apiary. I'll be using it again next year.

 

[Monbees]

Fair enough Karol.

Can I ask the audience of waspbane users the same question as a workaround ?

....what do hobby keepers with a single apiary with 2-4 hives need for a season ?

I have four hives and use two waspbanes, but I do move them around a bit as the hives, grouped in twos are 50m apart. I do not need to refill until the next season. Just purchased two in readiness!

 

[jjbee0]

Yes, probably - reactive rather than proactive. Probably late August (hazy memory).

What gets me about the Waspbane is the cost of the refill - £17.30. Refill = lower plastic chamber and a box of their patent wasp-attractant powder.
https://www.thorne.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=wasps&product_id=2027
You might expect that when the chamber is full of wasps it would be easy to unscrew the chamber from the vertical 'chimney' and pour away the wasps and liquid and refill the chamber with a wasp attractant eg. beer, jam etc. But no: the entrance to the chamber is guarded by a one-way rubber valve so that you can't pour out the contents i.e. you have to throw it away and buy another @ £17.30

The answer is to remove the rubber valve, pour away the contents, and refill the chamber. However removing the valve is very difficult - I suspect it's glued in. I have managed it but it's a struggle

]

Drill a hole in side and fit a plug in job done

 

[Amari]

Drill a hole in side and fit a plug in job done

Thanks, that's a thought. I'd need a fairly big hole, maybe 2cm, to allow the wasp corpses to drain out

 

[drex]

Home made. The plastic bit cost 80p from garden centre. Drilled hole in bottom of that and top of honey jar. I use vimto cordial. A dash of beer and a plum that has fallen off the tree. I see no escapees and the honey jar soon fills up

 

[Etton]

I suffered a lot of wasps at one particular apiary. Any suggestions for the best bait for catching the early queens. I only want to do this at one site where they were a real nuisance, at my other apiaries I will leave the wasps well alone.

 

[Karol]

I suffered a lot of wasps at one particular apiary. Any suggestions for the best bait for catching the early queens. I only want to do this at one site where they were a real nuisance, at my other apiaries I will leave the wasps well alone.

It's highly unlikely that low density trapping of queens will provide relief in the autumn unless the apiary a couple of miles away from hibernating sites and embedded in an agricultural monoculture with few hedgerows.

It would be more effective to understand the topography that the apiary is sited in and the overall draw of the area. So for example the availability of nesting habitats, density of insect populations other than the hives and naturally occuring sweet food sources other than the hives.

 

[Nannysbees]

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