Wasp extermination ?

[boywonder]

Hi all. Wasp season seems to be underway here - with a vengeance. I have 5 nucs in the garden, and whilst three are guarding their entrances OK, two are being plundered, I today observed.

So, out came the Waspbane, and I am pondering if/where I might have a better location to which I can move the nucs out of harm's way.

However, this evening, I happened to spot waspy activity (quite a lot of it) around some cedar cladding on our house. It seems clear to me there is a nest in there. They are getting behind the cladding through a half-centimetre gap at the end.

Whether or not this nest is the culprit, I think I need to exterminate it ASAP. Let's assume that I am not prepared to rip off the cladding... Has anyone any bright ideas as to how I might go about this ? The use of any substance which might get transferred to a beehive is clearly a no no.

Suggestions ? Cheers

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Bear]

Try a metal insect mesh on the entrance of the wasp nest or get a bag with crumpled news paper to create a ball and hang it in front. It’ll mimic a wasps nest and as it’s bigger will be seen as a threat so those wasps should leave.

 

[Ian123]

Try a metal insect mesh on the entrance of the wasp nest or get a bag with crumpled news paper to create a ball and hang it in front. It’ll mimic a wasps nest and as it’s bigger will be seen as a threat so those wasps should leave.

You really didn’t fall for that did you!!.........Boy wonder go get yourself some powder and apply liberally

 

[rook66]

I have an old vacuum cleaner for the job, on a busy flying day three or four fifteen min. sessions does the job, if need be, the hose can be extended with 1 1/2 sink waste pipe.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

get a bag with crumpled news paper to create a ball and hang it in front. It’ll mimic a wasps nest and as it’s bigger will be seen as a threat so those wasps should leave.

 

[Karol]

I second Rook66. I use a Henry vacuum. I remove the bag and fill the base unit with a few litres of water and a dash of washing up liquid - enough to break surface tension but not enough to create any foam. Then it's just a matter of setting the vacuum nozzle at the entrance to vacuum up the returning or departing foragers. One little tip. Try to leave the sentries in place until the end and vacuum them up last.

 

[Karol]

With regards to your vulnerable nucs assuming that they have tunnel entrances that they struggle to defend, I would recommend one of two courses of action. First would be to leave them in situ but seal the entrance and place a freshly primed trap at the very entrance to the hive and monitor until the wasps have been sufficiently eradicated to open up again. This has the advantage of eradicating the threat but you may need to ensure the hive is still sufficiently ventilated and keep a regular check on it thereafter in case wasp volume builds again. The second option is to move the hives and set traps in their place. Doing this will work if the hives are not covered in alarm pheromone so it's important to monitor the hives very closely when moved.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Hi all. Wasp season seems to be underway here - with a vengeance. I have 5 nucs in the garden, and whilst three are guarding their entrances OK, two are being plundered, I today observed.

So, out came the Waspbane, and I am pondering if/where I might have a better location to which I can move the nucs out of harm's way.

However, this evening, I happened to spot waspy activity (quite a lot of it) around some cedar cladding on our house. It seems clear to me there is a nest in there. They are getting behind the cladding through a half-centimetre gap at the end.

Whether or not this nest is the culprit, I think I need to exterminate it ASAP. Let's assume that I am not prepared to rip off the cladding... Has anyone any bright ideas as to how I might go about this ? The use of any substance which might get transferred to a beehive is clearly a no no.

Suggestions ? Cheers

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

Ficam W (wettable) sprayed around and into the hole. Usual safety precautions in handling.
A sachet will make enough for a lot of applications so I'd suggest mix about 1/4 quantities and seal the remainder in an airtight container.
Professional exterminators seem to favour ficam p (sprayable powder)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I can see that ending in tears

 

[boywonder]

I can see that ending in tears

What, JBM ? The use of chemicals ? I've just had a look at the Ficam product information sheet (fatal if swallowed; fatal if inhaled; very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects). Hmmmm.

Nonetheless, the prevailing advice here seems to be either:
1) Hoover (effective, if not a little laborious)
2) Treat chemically

I had seen a product (https://www.screwfix.com/p/zero-in-ultra-power-wasp-nest-foam-600ml/766hv) which is a foam spray I could get nicely through the gap. Whilst it would be very easy to apply, it contains Tetramethrin & Permethrin. Are these similarly heinous ?

... and, more importantly (assuming I were to seal the gap after the deed) what might the associated risks to my bees be ?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The foam is much safer and manageable than powders which can quite easily be picked up by a bee and carried back to the hive.
It also just soaks into the wasp nest and dries out, but it is easier for visible nests - wait until the last knockings of dusk when all the wasps are at home, stand at a safe distance and squirt at the nest entrance then the rest of the nest.

 

[Ian123]

The foams great if you can see the nest it literally dissolves them. Powder is better to go around the entrance if you don’t have a visual and let them walk it in. As to danger to bees I’ve never had an issue bees are not attracted to wasp nests.....Ian

 

[viridens]

...However, this evening, I happened to spot waspy activity (quite a lot of it) around some cedar cladding on our house. It seems clear to me there is a nest in there. They are getting behind the cladding through a half-centimetre gap at the end...

It sounds like you do have a nest there, and so you should be seeing a good stream of wasps going in and out. Here at the moment many wasps are busy chewing the cladding on nearby houses for nest building material, and some owners have mistaken this for a nest being present.

 

[Swarm]

They've been in and out of my neighbour's roof tiles all Summer.

 

[ericbeaumont]

I am pondering if/where I might have a better location to which I can move the nucs out of harm's way. Suggestions?

Move the nucs three miles away.

Wasps are a necessary piece of the pollinator jigsaw (and eat thousands of caterpillars and so on in summer) and although I've lost a nuc or weak colony now and then, that's more my fault for going into late summer with weak colonies. Resist the urge to kill one social insect in favour of another.

 

[boywonder]

Move the nucs three miles away.
... Resist the urge to kill one social insect in favour of another.

Hi Eric. I think if I were observing this thread as a 3rd party, I'd be inclined to agree with your 'live and let live' advice.

However, my >3-mile option is my main out-apiary. There, wasps are also rife - although all my hives appear to be strong enough to cope. I fear it would be out of the frying pan and into the fire. It's also out of sight (i.e. very different to being able to observe them frequently in my garden).

So, the way I look at it, if I can't trap/kill the nuisance wasps at home, I would (one way or the other) be sacrificing two potentially good honeybee colonies, for the sake of sparing the wasps. That is to say, one way or another there is going to be a victor ... and I need to make sure, as a beekeeper, that's the bees.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Difficult choice and your decision is understandable.

I lost a 3 frame nuc to wood ants this summer: stripped the frames of everything and I guess the bees absconded; the split in the other half of the box was untouched. Not come across these ants before but had to admire their work ethic; they don't bother strong colonies so I don't bother them.

 

[Heather]

I use these https://www.vita-europe.com/beehealth/products/apishield-hornet-trap/
One per apiary.. usually collects 1000's inside
I put under the weakest colony as the big ones cope.

Don't like to destroy insects usually, but my bees are my livestock and need to protect..

 

[Karol]

Treating wasp nests won't necessarily help and may make things much worse if not done correctly.

If the nest you are referring to is really busy with high volume of forager traffic it probably means the nest is still in the hunting phase. If the wasps attacking your nucs are going after honey then the nest is unlikely to be the culprit. If however, the attacking wasps are going after brood or the bees themselves for protein then it very well may be.

If you use pesticide at the sentry point to the nest during daylight hours, i.e. after the foragers have starting flying, you risk converting hunting wasps into sweet feeding wasps which will simply add pressure on your hives. Treating the sentry point incapacitates the sentries which has the effect of removing landing rights for the returning foragers so they don't all enter the nest and don't all die. It does mean that wasps that would otherwise be fed sugars regurgitated by the grubs in their nest are denied their sweet food source so will be forced to convert to sweet feeding, i.e. potentially start attacking your hives.

If you need to treat a nest, the best way is either vacuuming because with this method you are eliminating foragers which means they can't then morph into sweet feeding wasps or if using pesticide then at night using a foam to seal the nest entrance(s) directly (not the sentry point) with a fatal dose then injected directly into the centre of the nest.

 

[beeno]

Rook66 & Karol, I am so glad to see we have got a club going on the hoovering method as I seem to recall being treated as a crazy woman when I mentioned it before. The method is tedious, but very effective. I have removed thousands and thousands of wasps and european hornets by this method to give the bees a breather as the hornets and wasps lay siege to the colony and in the end makes it too weak to defend itself. It needs to be repeated though as the wasp and hornet colonies build up again, but I prefer it to using chemicals.