Spring wasp traps

[sharonh]

I'm getting traps ready to try and trap queen wasps before they get building nests. Last summer was particular bad around here & bees had an awful time trying to keep them at bay.
Have any of you tried spring traps? What did you use as bait? Early in the year I believe they are on protein diet. Had you any success in trapping.
I know some of you don't mind wasps but I couldn't go out into my garden with them last year, just don't like them. For every queen gone, it's a nest of 3000 gone.

 

[MartinL]

Wasps are beneficial in the Spring/ early summer.

Destroy the b&$!a%>s after August but let them be until then.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I'm getting traps ready to try and trap queen wasps before they get building nests. Last summer was particular bad around here & bees had an awful time trying to keep them at bay.
Have any of you tried spring traps? What did you use as bait? Early in the year I believe they are on protein diet. Had you any success in trapping.
I know some of you don't mind wasps but I couldn't go out into my garden with them last year, just don't like them. For every queen gone, it's a nest of 3000 gone.

I try to destroy every wasps nest I am aware of in my vicinity. Finding a queen trying to overwinter and squashing it before it can create another nest is hugely satisfying. There are enough of the little sods around that aren't nesting near me to keep the species going :-(

 

[Hivemaker.]

Wasps are beneficial in the Spring/ early summer.

I believe they are beneficial all the time, with no need to trap them at all.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I believe they are beneficial all the time, with no need to trap them at all.

Our opinions differ

 

[Midland Beek]

How can someone that presumably likes and admires bees, not also admire wasps? Needlessly killing wildlife in this way is the preserve of just about the mostly deeply unenlightened people there are out there, and it is a betrayal of what beekeeping should be about.

How would you feel if someone turned up and killed off your bee colonies because they said they were causing a nuisance?

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Drifting deliberately; a couple of my queen bumbles were out and about today. They are about the size of a small humming-bird and I love them.

 

[sharonh]

Everyone has different opinions. I had so much bother with them last summer. I don't want to go through the same again.
I thought of maybe some raw fish hanging in a trap might work.
With weather warming up, the queens will start emerging soon. Want to be prepared.
I didn't lose a colony to wasps last year but so many did but don't want to either.

 

[MartinL]

How can someone that presumably likes and admires bees, not also admire wasps? Needlessly killing wildlife in this way is the preserve of just about the mostly deeply unenlightened people there are out there, and it is a betrayal of what beekeeping should be about.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You haven't had a mild/non defensive colony destroyed by wasps, have you?

 

[sharonh]

You haven't had a mild/non defensive colony destroyed by wasps, have you?

Agree,
Several beekeepers lost colonies to wasps last summer.
I had a job trying to save a nuc from them also. They can be vicious.

 

[pargyle]

Drifting deliberately; a couple of my queen bumbles were out and about today. They are about the size of a small humming-bird and I love them.

Yep .. saw the first bumble today ..she was big, almost certainly a queen at this time of the year ... looking over some white heather in flower in the front garden but not sure she was getting anywhere with it ...

 

[oliver90owner]

The usual beekeeping problem with bees and wasps is the beekeepers themselves.

Weak colonies will be predated by predators; strong ones will resist. Those that encourage bees into the apiary with traps or by offering weak colonies as bait will have problems.

Decent strength colonies with properly sized entrances are easily able to deter the wasps. End of story as far as I am concerned. In my experience the odd wasps that might gain entry are either evicted within a few seconds or carried out a few minutes later. Any other scenario spells danger to that colony and then others nearby.

Think here, this is yet another reason why bee colonies are not found packed closely together in the wild - if one weak colony is robbed out, there is not then suddenly a huge number of wasps attacking adjacent colonies. The beekeeper should ensure all colonies are strong enough to resist wasp entry, even if that means reducing the colony count.

I have lost colonies to wasps, but not in the last several years. I would rather permanently remove a colony from my apiary than leave it weak and encourage wasp attack. Simple common sense approach. KISS principle in operation and all that.

Too many try to expand colony numbers too quickly or too late in the season and then complain. I did that one season, a long time ago, and learned the lesson. Slow learners may never get the message. DON'T BLAME THE WASPS. They only take advantage of an opportunity offered by the bees (by the beekeeper in the case of managed hives).

RAB

 

[TOBY-3652]

Wasps are beneficial in the Spring/ early summer.

Destroy the b&$!a%>s after August but let them be until then.

AND THEY STING AND ROB HIVES OUT DESTROY THEM AT THE FIRST OPERTUNITY I WONDER WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY WHEN AND IFF THE BIG HORNETS ARRIVE?????????