Wasp catching jam jars

[Polyanwood]

Why not leave them be?

Wasps have their place. They clear dead animals and rotting fruit. They are not evil insects. We don't need to kill them.

In the past I have lost a few nucs to wasps, but not since, as at the first sign of them I restrict the entrances, and if I see one actually trying to get in, I move the hive.

 

[Karol]

Wasps have their place. They clear dead animals and rotting fruit. They are not evil insects. We don't need to kill them.

Having worked with wasps for such a long time I have the greatest respect for them and for where they fit ecologically.

Unfortunately wasps exert a heavy toll on human health. For example, in a Hansard report to Parliament, it was reported that just under 1000 people were hospitalised in one year for a wide range of serious medical complications arising from wasp stings.

My view therefore is that we shouldn't kill wasps unnecessarily.

Low efficiency wasp traps unfortunately kill far more wasps than is necessary to manage a wasp problem and that's because they constantly draw wasps in from areas beyond their natural attractive range because they permit wasps to escape to communicate the location of the trap to their nest which may very well be over a mile away.

In the past I have lost a few nucs to wasps, but not since, as at the first sign of them I restrict the entrances, and if I see one actually trying to get in, I move the hive.

There are lots of integrated wasp management techniques that can be used to protect hives that don't require the use of traps. I would always recommend that bee keepers first try reducing the size of the entrance to the hive and then use of a pane of glass or plastic as has been described in other posts which works exceptionally well. Failing that, moving a hive will also help as will sealing it off for a few hours. All of these techniques are forms of 'interruption' to programmed wasp feeding and pin point navigation.

If all of the above fail, then the use of traps may be considered but low efficiency wasp traps will only increase the number of wasps in their vicinity and should not be placed near hives. This 'distraction' technique may have some merit but it is limited and fraught with risk. If for example, the wind direction is wrong such traps will draw wasps through the hives which is where they'll stop and cause havoc. High efficiency wasp traps on the other hand work differently to intercept scouting wasps and can therefore be placed directly on top or infront of the hives, preferably immediately infront of the pane of glass. Such traps cannot ever make the wasp problem worse.

 

[iombeeman]

no such thing as a bad insect or animal for that matter,not sure about some people.....

 

[ichbinpaul]

That's because it's the wrong time of season in the wasp life cycle.

As for pop bottle traps then this video might be of interest;

Wasp bottle trap showing escaping wasps - YouTube

(Sorry for posting it again but it was originally posted under the artificial wasp nest thread so might have been missed by beeks having wasp problems).

I see what you mean Karol! and as for bottle traps, I still use nail hole jam jar traps and they are still catching them, not as many though.

 

[Somerford]

Well I emptied out 7 wasp traps for a 2nd time today......even with restricted entrances they are a bl***y nuisance. I can't imagine my traps will have a huge effect on the wasps in a square mile....but on a rough count per handful in the traps I reckon I've killed 3000 so far.....nearly an entire nest.

Value apple juice works a treat, although prune juice works too.

Now if they didn't bother my bees, I'd leave them alone !

S

 

[Cazza]

If all of the above fail, then the use of traps may be considered but low efficiency wasp traps will only increase the number of wasps in their vicinity and should not be placed near hives. .

At last, someone who knows what they are talking about.
Cazza

 

[Karol]

Well I emptied out 7 wasp traps for a 2nd time today......even with restricted entrances they are a bl***y nuisance. I can't imagine my traps will have a huge effect on the wasps in a square mile....but on a rough count per handful in the traps I reckon I've killed 3000 so far.....nearly an entire nest.

Value apple juice works a treat, although prune juice works too.

Now if they didn't bother my bees, I'd leave them alone !

S

Almost one entire nest out of the 1000 nests per square mile or 12,500 nests in wasp flight range!

I'm sorry but I can't help but smile at the work that you're creating for yourself. Low efficiency wasp traps just attract more wasps than they kill so it's no wonder that you are having to empty the traps regularly.

The way it works is something like this:

Lets say the average efficiency of a bottle trap is 10%, i.e. it only kills one in 10 wasps (which is roughly about right give or take). Lets say each scout that enters, feeds and escapes then goes back to the nest to bring back 9 more wasps with them.

So, 1st wasp enters and dies - 1 dead wasp
2nd wasp enters and survives - 1 dead wasp and now 10 wasps visiting.
Kill 10% i.e. another 1 wasp dead and 9 free to bring back 9 more wasps each. That makes 2 dead wasps and 90 wasps visiting.
Kill 10% i.e. another 9 dead wasps and 81 free to bring back 9 more wasps each. That makes 11 dead wasps and 810 wasps visiting.
Kill 10%, i.e. another 81 dead wasps which makes 92 dead wasps and 729 wasps in the vicinity of the trap.

Obviously in nature nothing is quite a precise but this is an 'accurate' model of how low efficiency wasp traps increase the number of wasps in their vicinity whilst 'appearing' to do a good job. The interesting thing is that with a high efficiency trap all you would have killed is the initial two wasps to be wasp free. Anyone looking at such a trap with only two wasps in it would immediately assume that it were a failure.

Nature is full of wonderful paradoxical surprises.

Much better to reduce the entrance size to your hives and place a glass pane in front of the hive (as posted elsewhere) and do away with low efficiency traps altogether. If wasps are still a problem then shut the hive for a few hours or move it a few feet. If and only if that fails then consider using a high efficiency trap (i.e. one that definitely kills effectively 100% of the wasps that it catches).

 

[ichbinpaul]

Almost one entire nest out of the 1000 nests per square mile or 12,500 nests in wasp flight range!

I'm sorry but I can't help but smile at the work that you're creating for yourself. Low efficiency wasp traps just attract more wasps than they kill so it's no wonder that you are having to empty the traps regularly.

The way it works is something like this:

Lets say the average efficiency of a bottle trap is 10%, i.e. it only kills one in 10 wasps (which is roughly about right give or take). Lets say each scout that enters, feeds and escapes then goes back to the nest to bring back 9 more wasps with them.

So, 1st wasp enters and dies - 1 dead wasp
2nd wasp enters and survives - 1 dead wasp and now 10 wasps visiting.
Kill 10% i.e. another 1 wasp dead and 9 free to bring back 9 more wasps each. That makes 2 dead wasps and 90 wasps visiting.
Kill 10% i.e. another 9 dead wasps and 81 free to bring back 9 more wasps each. That makes 11 dead wasps and 810 wasps visiting.
Kill 10%, i.e. another 81 dead wasps which makes 92 dead wasps and 729 wasps in the vicinity of the trap.

Obviously in nature nothing is quite a precise but this is an 'accurate' model of how low efficiency wasp traps increase the number of wasps in their vicinity whilst 'appearing' to do a good job. The interesting thing is that with a high efficiency trap all you would have killed is the initial two wasps to be wasp free. Anyone looking at such a trap with only two wasps in it would immediately assume that it were a failure.

Nature is full of wonderful paradoxical surprises.

Much better to reduce the entrance size to your hives and place a glass pane in front of the hive (as posted elsewhere) and do away with low efficiency traps altogether. If wasps are still a problem then shut the hive for a few hours or move it a few feet. If and only if that fails then consider using a high efficiency trap (i.e. one that definitely kills effectively 100% of the wasps that it catches).

I see your point Karol and I do not dissagree at all, however I have watched my Jam jar traps for many an hour over the years and have never seen one escape alive, I think they suffocate in the Co2 from the fermentation! the invert bottle traps I do Not use! and I will shed no tears at the massacre either because they make my apple cider/juice extraction a misery most years, a lot of my Little and large helpers vannish into vapour!!! and I am left carrying on into the night.

 

[Karol]

I see your point Karol and I do not dissagree at all, however I have watched my Jam jar traps for many an hour over the years and have never seen one escape alive, I think they suffocate in the Co2 from the fermentation! the invert bottle traps I do Not use! and I will shed no tears at the massacre either because they make my apple cider/juice extraction a misery most years, a lot of my Little and large helpers vannish into vapour!!! and I am left carrying on into the night.

Two things.

Firstly:

Have you watched the same trap for a whole day, every day over the period of a whole week. Wasps in traps behave very differently at different times of the day and at different times of the trap's life. For example, at dusk wasps walk instead of fly so quite a number of wasps escape as the light starts to fade. Similarily, as jars become full and wasps survive longer, they lay down cuticular peptides and eventually find their way out which may happen a day or two into the trap's life.

One of the cardinal signs of a low efficiency wasp trap is that it is permanently busy. It may just be that you have an abnormally high population of wasps in your vicinity.

Secondly:

Apple juice/cider extraction definitely requires IWM. Do you use your jam jar traps in that situation as well?

 

[Somerford]

Two things.

Firstly:

Have you watched the same trap for a whole day, every day over the period of a whole week. Wasps in traps behave very differently at different times of the day and at different times of the trap's life. For example, at dusk wasps walk instead of fly so quite a number of wasps escape as the light starts to fade. Similarily, as jars become full and wasps survive longer, they lay down cuticular peptides and eventually find their way out which may happen a day or two into the trap's life.

One of the cardinal signs of a low efficiency wasp trap is that it is permanently busy. It may just be that you have an abnormally high population of wasps in your vicinity.

Secondly:

Apple juice/cider extraction definitely requires IWM. Do you use your jam jar traps in that situation as well?

I agree.....very few, if any escape. It's all to do with the holes you put in the side of the pop bottle...., if you drill a nice round 4mm hole, then they can escape, but a sharpie one made by a sharp knife works a treat....jagged edge, they cannot escape.

I see your point about attracting the jaspers but believe me, the apiary was inundated, so needs must, and there is very little activity against the hives now it's all focused on the traps.

I think I read your post last year, indeed it's where I quoted 1000+ nests in a square mile in another post.....but to be honest that has to be in an exceptional wasp year....my pest control buddy is saying it's a below average year for wasps so far

Regards

S

 

[hallshoney]

try cider in your traps the wasps love it

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

At last, someone who knows what they are talking about.
Cazza

Is that allowed on this forum?

 

[steve1958]

________Wasp invasion.

 

[milkermel]

karol thanks for saying things that i was thinking, we all have a OMGosh momement when we realise that the waspies are trying to steal our honey, but if you sit and watch for a while around the hive, 9 times out of 10 the bees get them gone if the colony is strong. everything does have a place on this planet and wasps do a great job.

I must admit however that i am fortunate and have a pestcontroller as a husband so if we do find a very strong problem (not necissarrily with our hives) then we watch the flight line and destroy the wasps in the nest. Interestingly they are far more interested in my raspberries this year than my honey - they only turned up the other evening because i managed to get myself into a right mess!

 

[Erichalfbee]

They have been all over an ex Christmas tree planted in the garden for about a week......Hundreds of them (wasps that is...not pest controllers).

 

[Karol]

They have been all over an ex Christmas tree planted in the garden for about a week......Hundreds of them (wasps that is...not pest controllers).

Are they rolling about quite a lot - only Christmas isn't the only thing that happens just once a year!

 

[Karol]

<snip>

I must admit however that i am fortunate and have a pestcontroller as a husband so if we do find a very strong problem (not necissarrily with our hives) then we watch the flight line and destroy the wasps in the nest. <snip>

Hmmmm!

There is a time and a place where wasp nests can be destroyed. Get it wrong and you potentially create more nuisance wasps that come after your honey.

Wasp nests that are found indoors or are a direct threat to human health because of close proximity to humans need to be destroyed because they are dangerous.

However, I strongly caution against treating wasp nests that are 'out in the field' when wasps are in their hunting phase. The reason is quite complex to explain so I apologise for the length of the post.

All adult wasps have mouth parts which only allows liquid feeding and they require high octane carbohydrate liquids because they are busy little boddies (I was about to say busy little bees but that would be heresy!). The only thing that changes is the source of that high octane liquid. During the hunting phase, wasps get that high octane liquid from their grubs within their nest (the grubs convert the chitin from insect skeletons into free sugars).

OK so far. Now comes the complication. When a wasp nest is treated, the first wasps to be incapacitated are the sentries. When this happens, hunting wasps are denied entry back into the nest because there is no one to grant them landing rights. This means that these hunting wasps are denied food and so switch to sweet feeding which means they prematurely come after your honey.

I get into a lot of hot water pointing this out and I've been assured by certain pest controllers that the wasps do eventually return and go back into the nest, pick up a dose of pesticide and then die off outside of the nest. I'm still waiting for evidence of that and when such evidence becomes available then I'll change my tune, but so far no such evidence has been presented.

The video clip below illustrates what I mean. (Incidentally there's no audio as this is a training video that I use for seminar purposes where I talk over the clip). In the first section notice how foraging wasps don't fly straight back into the nest? That's because they have to wait for recognition by the sentries to be granted permission to enter. In the second section, a wasp nest is treated. The red circled wasps are sentries. The blue circled wasps are foragers. Notice how the foragers never go back into the nest. The last section shows the nest broken open. See how few dead wasps there are in the nest. Treating a nest during the hunting phase therefore risks raising the background population of nuisance wasps in the vicinity of the nest.

All that said, it is important to remember that there is a time and place to treat wasp nests. Once wasps are naturally sweet feeding, i.e. after the nest has matured and there are no grubs in the nest anyway, then treating the nest only helps to reduce the background population of nuisance wasps.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDXJk-BEemE"]Nuisance wasps - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Erichalfbee]

Are they rolling about quite a lot - only Christmas isn't the only thing that happens just once a year!

It's the retsina

 

[Putnamsmif]

Karol, couldn't the returning foragers not be entering the nest because they can sense the treatment just sprayed, or alarm pheromones from wasps dying from the treatment?

 

[Somerford]

Hence the reason I treat Jasper nests at dusk......so you get the whole lot in one fell swoop....and they then don't go looking for other sugar sources, as they are pushing up the daisies !