Wasps

[curry756]

Hello everyone - its been a while since I have been on here.

Quick question - I have wasps going in and out of my beehive. How can I stop them. They are down to 1 beespace and have been since the end of summer?

I have closed it up with gaffer tape and will do so for a couple of days now. Anything else I can do?

Thanks in advance.

 

[domino]

Have you tried a wasp trap? I've not seen a wasp for a while and we normally have lots of them from the wood my house backs onto.

 

[kazmcc]

Can you move your hives a bit? Check out this video, you don't have to move them far, just put some food in it's place so they don't try to find food again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyiwEGtaAe4

If you move them backwards so their entrance is positioned in the same direction it shouldn't be a problem should it guys?

Check out the waspbane website for advice for bee keepers. Some excellent advice there and it doesn't push the product.

 

[Karol]

Hello everyone - its been a while since I have been on here.

Quick question - I have wasps going in and out of my beehive. How can I stop them. They are down to 1 beespace and have been since the end of summer?

I have closed it up with gaffer tape and will do so for a couple of days now. Anything else I can do?

Thanks in advance.

Do you know if they are coming for the grubs in the hive (i.e. hunting) or coming for honey/sugar?

 

[curry756]

Do you know if they are coming for the grubs in the hive (i.e. hunting) or coming for honey/sugar?

I would guess they are coming for the food. I put some feed 2:1 syrup on the hive on friday. As we had a warm autumn the colony never really reduced in size, therefore they were getting through their stores really fast.

Its all taped up now, I will leave it like this for 3 days and I will make a wasp trap or two when I get some bottles.

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

 

[pargyle]

I wouldn't bother with conventional wasp traps - if they have already found the food source they will go back to it. Have you tried a sheet of glass or clear acrylic in front of the entrance leaned up at an angle ? It often works as the wasps don't seem to understand - whereas the bees find their way round it.

Also .. a narrow entrance tunnel added to the entrance will make it more defensible from wasps ..

I'd stop with the syrup .. unless you have grave concerns about the stores situation I would quit feeding them now and be ready with some fondant in early spring .. if they don't have enough stores to see them through until February then there really is something wrong as the mild autumn has meant they have been forgaging non-stop - indeed, mine are still bringing stuff in on the days when they can fly.

Lastly, are your hives insulated - even a slab of Kingspan on top of the crownboard will help and you will be surprised at how much less they eat over winter with sealed up crownboard and insulated hive.

 

[curry756]

I wouldn't bother with conventional wasp traps - if they have already found the food source they will go back to it. Have you tried a sheet of glass or clear acrylic in front of the entrance leaned up at an angle ? It often works as the wasps don't seem to understand - whereas the bees find their way round it.

Also .. a narrow entrance tunnel added to the entrance will make it more defensible from wasps ..

I'd stop with the syrup .. unless you have grave concerns about the stores situation I would quit feeding them now and be ready with some fondant in early spring .. if they don't have enough stores to see them through until February then there really is something wrong as the mild autumn has meant they have been forgaging non-stop - indeed, mine are still bringing stuff in on the days when they can fly.

Lastly, are your hives insulated - even a slab of Kingspan on top of the crownboard will help and you will be surprised at how much less they eat over winter with sealed up crownboard and insulated hive.

Cheers - i am a few pieces of insulation short - I will get some next time I see some.

Cheers again.

 

[madasafish]

Cheers - i am a few pieces of insulation short - I will get some next time I see some.

Cheers again.

I am a few sheets short

 

[Millet]

I wouldn't bother with conventional wasp traps - if they have already found the food source they will go back to it. Have you tried a sheet of glass or clear acrylic in front of the entrance leaned up at an angle ? It often works as the wasps don't seem to understand - whereas the bees find their way round it.

Also .. a narrow entrance tunnel added to the entrance will make it more defensible from wasps ..

I'd stop with the syrup .. unless you have grave concerns about the stores situation I would quit feeding them now and be ready with some fondant in early spring .. if they don't have enough stores to see them through until February then there really is something wrong as the mild autumn has meant they have been forgaging non-stop - indeed, mine are still bringing stuff in on the days when they can fly.

Lastly, are your hives insulated - even a slab of Kingspan on top of the crownboard will help and you will be surprised at how much less they eat over winter with sealed up crownboard and insulated hive.

Karol gratefully suggested this method to me and it worked a treat after i halved the width down as suggested again, from now on i will make all my entrance blocks the same.

 

[beebot]

I recommend a high efficiency wasp trap.

 

[Millet]

I recommend a high efficiency wasp trap.

I have also got one of them,

 

[Thymallus]

I recommend a high efficiency wasp trap.

I recommend a cheap clear home made plastic one with some attractant like cider vinegar/cider etc. Two of the major attractions for random food seeking wasps is seeing other wasps and odour. It helps to explain why my cheap clear plastic bottle traps always worked better then my dark plastic traps. There is visual attraction to a load of wasps inside a plastic bottle.
Wondering if adding a picture of wasps before the traps start filling up may make them more effective.

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Huge queen wasp just zoomed round my living room

 

[Millet]

Huge queen wasp just zoomed round my living room

There was a huge one buzzing around my bee shed last week, i had to come out of the way because if it stung me i would of splatted it.

 

[beebot]

I recommend a cheap clear home made plastic one with some attractant like cider vinegar/cider etc. Two of the major attractions for random food seeking wasps is seeing other wasps and odour. It helps to explain why my cheap clear plastic bottle traps always worked better then my dark plastic traps. There is visual attraction to a load of wasps inside a plastic bottle.
Wondering if adding a picture of wasps before the traps start filling up may make them more effective.

Why's that? Keep it simple - remember I'm stupid.

 

[Thymallus]

Why's that? Keep it simple - remember I'm stupid.

Wasps generally hunt randomly until they locate a food source . Wasps seeking out carbohydrate sources (such as honey) use mainly odor and sight. A big attractant to a hunting wasp is the sight of other wasps. If a flying wasp sees other congregations of wasps it's attracted to them (thinks they have found food source), hence the apparent success of clear bottles full of wasps as opposed to dark plastic....or at least that's what I've been seeing and not understanding why, until I did a bit of reading.
Unlike bees, wasps have a very poorly developed social recruitment to food sources.
They don't have the equivalent of a "scout bee". If you try a google search for "scout wasp", only place you will find them mentioned is on pest control companies websites trying to sell you a wasp trap.
I can give you some links to references about wasp food location if you wish.

 

[beebot]

Wasps generally hunt randomly until they locate a food source . Wasps seeking out carbohydrate sources (such as honey) use mainly odor and sight. A big attractant to a hunting wasp is the sight of other wasps. If a flying wasp sees other congregations of wasps it's attracted to them (thinks they have found food source), hence the apparent success of clear bottles full of wasps as opposed to dark plastic....or at least that's what I've been seeing and not understanding why, until I did a bit of reading.
Unlike bees, wasps have a very poorly developed social recruitment to food sources.
They don't have the equivalent of a "scout bee". If you try a google search for "scout wasp", only place you will find them mentioned is on pest control companies websites trying to sell you a wasp trap.
I can give you some links to references about wasp food location if you wish.

Really interesting. I would really like to see the papers.

 

[Thymallus]

Will post some tomorrow, links are on my pc.

 

[Karol]

There was a huge one buzzing around my bee shed last week, i had to come out of the way because if it stung me i would of splatted it.

This is a picture which is repeating itself over most of the UK. Our monitoring sites and pest control links are reporting significant numbers of late emerging queens signalling that the second round of wasp procreation has come to an end with wasp nests maturing. That's a cue to be wary. Residual foragers will be turning to sweet feeding. If the weather stays mild as it is and with no flowering plants available hives will be at increased risk as they represent one of the few remaining sources of carbohydrate. We have seen nest maturation as late as the second/third week in November in previous years, but this is by far the latest we have seen since we started monitoring in 2000. Fingers crossed that temperatures fall to freezing as quickly as possible.

 

[beebot]

This is a picture which is repeating itself over most of the UK. Our monitoring sites and pest control links are reporting significant numbers of late emerging queens signalling that the second round of wasp procreation has come to an end with wasp nests maturing. That's a cue to be wary. Residual foragers will be turning to sweet feeding. If the weather stays mild as it is and with no flowering plants available hives will be at increased risk as they represent one of the few remaining sources of carbohydrate. We have seen nest maturation as late as the second/third week in November in previous years, but this is by far the latest we have seen since we started monitoring in 2000. Fingers crossed that temperatures fall to freezing as quickly as possible.

Lucky for me that I have not seen any for weeks.