Preventing anything else

[ShinySideUp]

If I put up wasp traps, how can I be sure that I won't trap anything else? In spring I built a slug trap using a plastic bottle and and ale as a lure and promptly caught a bumble bee (it was still alive when I saw it and was duly released to continue a happy, if drunken, life). I got rid of the trap.

So how do I make/buy traps that will not catch my honey bees? I have read a lot on this subject but cannot decipher with certainty what wasps want that bees don't.

What do others use when it comes to trap type and bait to go in it?

 

[Webby]

Bees won't go for fruit. A bit of jam and water works well.

 

[Swift Nick]

Be aware that if you build a trap that allows a wasp to escape, then it will communicate to the other wasps that your apiary is a food source and more wasps will return, they might then move on to your hives.
Also be careful when filling and handling not to get jam on the outside, as again it will attract wasps to the area without trapping.
I just bought a Waspbane trap, it hasn't arrived yet, but the reviews say it doesn't attract bees & it doesn't let wasps escape.
I had wasps, only a few, getting in my hives which were newly transferred nuc's, this week, so I stopped feeding and fitted a home made curved tunnel over the entrance, just a folded piece of OHP film safety pinned down. The bees soon adapted & the wasps don't seem to work it out, if they do they will be in a tunnel with lots of bees, the entrance is down to 2 bee spaces too, so this would really slow a wasp allowing the bees to repel it.
I will be happier when the trap is also in place. I have heard that if wasps turn up in high number on a weak hive it is very hard to stop the robbing.

 

[Millet]

Don't put honey in your traps like i did once which resulted in bees getting caught, waspbane unlike homemade bottle traps have small entrances that will not allow the bigger bumbles/moths and slugs to enter the trap.

 

[Heather]

Wasps bad this year, already bothering my bees.
I dont see much result from the Hornet floors I purchased, but maybe early days.
Better results from my 4pint plastic milk bottles with a letter box flap cut half way up and jammy water in. Doing a survey at the apiaries .. jam v coca cola v cider.. Jam winning so far. About 30 in it.