Wasps already

I have two waspbane traps out and four in stock. Shallows were nadired some time ago so I hope the stores are already up in the brood box

ho sorry I meant they are no more was at a elderly ladies house. treated as in DEAD

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Hello Toby.

WO, not meant to criticise !, although reading my clumsily worded post can see it looked like it, really just interested in the "where" and "how" of getting rid of the colony.

I had a HUGE colony last year in my suburban back garden, decided had to go due to my two little kids, tried every organic method I could .

Tried to drown them, ramming hose into opening ( in compost heap ), tried to bury them, tried to douse the nest with bucket fulls of a nuclear concoction of vinegars, tabasco sauce, chile powder !!! ( got off internet ) ... Was like Curry Night for them, not a bother to them.

Did all this by at night by torchlight in a state of near panic, each time thinking I was gonna be mugged by thousands of them poring out of the nest !

On one especially clumsily executed hose drowning escapade, after ramming the hose into the entrance and seeing some piling out ready to attack. I turned to flee and got my feet tangled up in the coiled hose and fell into a Gooseberry bush !!

So hence my interest in how you approached it ( hopefully and probably better than me !"

Do believe though they themselves are fascinating creatures ( and where they pose no immediate danger !! ) , which they did obviously in your case, should be left alone as they are a vital part of the ecosystem.

Cheers

Brian.

went to my apiary on monday and 1 of my hives has a miller feeder on it. tho some wasps were in the mesh area with bees there eas a good 20 - 30 in my syrup, and they were not smsll they were huge. I been told they might be queen wasps defo not hornets. looks like they found a way into my roof section where it sits on my super/brood box.

went down yesterday with traps not as many flying round but some were still getting into the hive.

this oct weather is not only confusing for the flowers but the insects too. going be in for another odd mid october.

beeno said:

Hi Karol,
So far so good on the European Hornet and wasp side the bees have coped well. There is me thinking it is soon all over, so thanks for the heads up. One question please, how many queen wasps does each colony produce for overwintering?

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An average nest (if there ever can be such a thing) will produce in the region of 1,500 queens. That said, in a year such as this where nests can be significantly bigger then 6,000 queens is not unheard of. That said, it's not the queens that are the problem. It's the adult worker wasps once they start nuisance sweet feeding of which there may be anything from 2,000 to 5,000 in an average nest to 20,000 in a bigger nest.

BrianO said:

Hello Toby.

WO, not meant to criticise !, although reading my clumsily worded post can see it looked like it, really just interested in the "where" and "how" of getting rid of the colony.

I had a HUGE colony last year in my suburban back garden, decided had to go due to my two little kids, tried every organic method I could .

Tried to drown them, ramming hose into opening ( in compost heap ), tried to bury them, tried to douse the nest with bucket fulls of a nuclear concoction of vinegars, tabasco sauce, chile powder !!! ( got off internet ) ... Was like Curry Night for them, not a bother to them.

Did all this by at night by torchlight in a state of near panic, each time thinking I was gonna be mugged by thousands of them poring out of the nest !

On one especially clumsily executed hose drowning escapade, after ramming the hose into the entrance and seeing some piling out ready to attack. I turned to flee and got my feet tangled up in the coiled hose and fell into a Gooseberry bush !!

So hence my interest in how you approached it ( hopefully and probably better than me !"

Do believe though they themselves are fascinating creatures ( and where they pose no immediate danger !! ) , which they did obviously in your case, should be left alone as they are a vital part of the ecosystem.

Cheers

Brian.

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my mistake I shouldn't of put dead in capitals

Torq said:

About 2 months ago I lost a nuc to wasps and was emptying the wasp traps almost every day there was that many of them about. I put my traps on top of the hives, my logic is that the wasps will find the hives and that if they meet resistance at the entrance then they will go for the easy stuff in the traps above. There were so many about that I was sitting at the kitchen table with the swatter killing them as they flew in the open door.

Then it stopped! I haven't seen any for about 5 weeks but am under no illusions that they won't be back in force. I've bought more wasp traps and will be closing up the entrances very soon. In the past I've seen wasps at the bottle bank in mid December and I think this will be one of those years.

Very soon this forum will be awash with "Help wasps!" threads.

One thought has just occurred to me. Those who have nadired supers, have you just put the sweet stuff closer to the entrance and will this invite the wasps??

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There are so many interesting facets to your post Torq!

First off it is entirely possible that the wasps that were bothering your hives in August were nuisance wasps that had been displaced from their nests as a result of nest eradication activities in your area rather than wasps from a matured nest.

It is also possible that wasps in your area may have gone into a second procreative cycle. This is unusual but we have witnessed this a couple of times and interestingly on both occasions it heralded cold and harsh winters (by UK standards). Probably just co-incidence but interesting nevertheless.

If you were emptying your traps on a daily basis then it is quite likely that the traps were adding to your problems rather than helping. There's a world of difference between high and low efficiency traps and interestingly low efficiency traps always kill more wasps than high efficiency traps but they rarely succeed in protecting hives quite simply because they attract more wasps than they kill.

It's true that wasps will take the path of least resistance and will therefore go into traps rather than try to gain access to a defended hive. BUT and there is a massive BUT, low efficiency wasp traps that encourage swarm feeding by failing to kill scouting wasps at the first time of asking, create a swarm of wasps in the vicinity of the hive. When the trap ceases to become available to wasps for example when it dries out or there as so many wasps that the wasps can't get to the food or it topples over or spoils, then what happens to that ready made swarm of wasps? They all collectively then go on to attack the hive and it is far harder for a hive to deal with a concerted attack from a swarm of wasps rather than bat away individual scouting wasps.

Thanks Karol. I do apologise, but I have hovered up a wasp nest which seems to have become very active last week despite me thinking previously they were dwindling to nothing. Reading the posts since my query, I am very glad of my action. Took 40 minutes and I would guess 2,000 plus wasps.

Karol said:

There are so many interesting facets to your post Torq!

First off it is entirely possible that the wasps that were bothering your hives in August were nuisance wasps that had been displaced from their nests as a result of nest eradication activities in your area rather than wasps from a matured nest..

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It's rural Ireland. Bar throwing a can of petrol on a wasps nest there is no one interested in wasp nest eradication so it's highly unlikely anyone was doing such in the local area. The nearest houses to the hives are well over 300m away and no one in any of them were destroying nests.

Karol said:

It is also possible that wasps in your area may have gone into a second procreative cycle. This is unusual but we have witnessed this a couple of times and interestingly on both occasions it heralded cold and harsh winters (by UK standards). Probably just co-incidence but interesting nevertheless..

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Karol said:

``If you were emptying your traps on a daily basis then it is quite likely that the traps were adding to your problems rather than helping. There's a world of difference between high and low efficiency traps and interestingly low efficiency traps always kill more wasps than high efficiency traps but they rarely succeed in protecting hives quite simply because they attract more wasps than they kill..

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You are making an assumption... that I am using low efficiency traps. Ok maybe I am but I have one set up outside the kitchen window and as I spend all day sitting at the kitchen table (working on my laptop) and I have seen plenty of wasps enter but I've never seen one get out, not one. I've watched wasps wander around underneath the lid but none have made it to the entrance. These are the ones I use.

Karol said:

It's true that wasps will take the path of least resistance and will therefore go into traps rather than try to gain access to a defended hive. BUT and there is a massive BUT, low efficiency wasp traps that encourage swarm feeding by failing to kill scouting wasps at the first time of asking, create a swarm of wasps in the vicinity of the hive. When the trap ceases to become available to wasps for example when it dries out or there as so many wasps that the wasps can't get to the food or it topples over or spoils, then what happens to that ready made swarm of wasps? They all collectively then go on to attack the hive and it is far harder for a hive to deal with a concerted attack from a swarm of wasps rather than bat away individual scouting wasps.

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Due to their design the traps don't dry out, any moisture condenses on the lid and falls back in. They don't fall over as they don't have the high center of gravity like a plastic bottle trap It's no problem for me to wander the 300m to the hives a couple of times a day to have a look and see what's going on.
I've yet to see a swarm of wasps near any of the traps, just the occasional one or two looking for the entrance which would lead me to believe they were being effective. By your logic, if they were inefficient there's be swarms of wasps about.

The only time I did see a large number of wasps was when I removed the top of the nuc that had been overrun. The traps went out after that and I didn't have any problems after that. Yet! I'm not arrogant to think it couldn't happen again.

I do think though that the dartington type floors under my hives have contributed to their defence and the nuc, that was lost, was 3ft away from another nuc that was of the same age but it was always just a bit weaker. I think the wasps found the path of least resistance and went for it.

In some of my traps I used the natural attractant sold by lidl during the summer, it works brilliantly, the wasps found it within 5 mins of putting it out.

Oh yea, I tried these which I bought in the states





Rubbish! Caught nothing!!


I love these wasp discussions!!

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Tried this last year, honestly... Seemed to have an effect, used on Apple trees to deter the little feckers !

beeno said:

Thanks Karol. I do apologise, but I have hovered up a wasp nest which seems to have become very active last week despite me thinking previously they were dwindling to nothing. Reading the posts since my query, I am very glad of my action. Took 40 minutes and I would guess 2,000 plus wasps.

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No need to apologise. Wasps are Jekyll and Hyde insects. They may be very important ecologically but they are also quite deadly so there is a time and a place to deal with them. It's about judicious nest eradication rather than indiscriminate eradication.

Vacuuming nests when done properly and carefully is probably the safest option especially if you leave the sentries in place for as long as possible and at the same time don't rupture the nest. That way you deal with the workers which would otherwise become the real problem.

Torq said:

It's rural Ireland. Bar throwing a can of petrol on a wasps nest there is no one interested in wasp nest eradication so it's highly unlikely anyone was doing such in the local area. The nearest houses to the hives are well over 300m away and no one in any of them were destroying nests.

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Wasps have been known to fly 2 miles if necessary to find food. 300m is well within their normal 'comfort' foraging zone. That said I don't dispute that in rural locations the number of nests eradicated may be low. However, given that each nest that is treated can given rise to between 2000 to 5000 hungry nuisance wasps it only takes one or two nests to be eradicated in the vicinity of a sugar source to cause a problem. As I said, it's one possibility and may not fit your situation but it is something that we do see time and again especially around visitor attractions that have active wasp nest eradication programmes which tend to generate hungry wasps when the wasps can no longer get their carbs from within their nest from their grubs.

You are making an assumption...

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Forgive my poor articulation - English is my second language. I agree it does read as though I made an assumption with reference to what you were doing but that was not my intention. It was meant to be in the third person tense - sorry!

that I am using low efficiency traps. Ok maybe I am but I have one set up outside the kitchen window and as I spend all day sitting at the kitchen table (working on my laptop) and I have seen plenty of wasps enter but I've never seen one get out, not one. I've watched wasps wander around underneath the lid but none have made it to the entrance. These are the ones I use.

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It's not for me to comment about specific traps because I have a vested interest. Again, talking in the third person tense (i.e. in no relation to you), I have seen many people swear blindly that wasps never escape their traps whereas the reality is quite different. For instance I don't know of many people who have observed wasp traps not just during the day when wasp behaviour is influenced by light but right through dusk into the night. You might be surprised at how many wasps escape from wasp traps when they start crawling instead of flying because of the dark (with the caveat that this varies to different extents based on design).

Due to their design the traps don't dry out, any moisture condenses on the lid and falls back in. They don't fall over as they don't have the high center of gravity like a plastic bottle trap It's no problem for me to wander the 300m to the hives a couple of times a day to have a look and see what's going on.

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What matters is that you are happy with your traps. Again, in the third person tense - there are lots of reasons why traps become unavailable to wasps. Jam jar traps with honey become available as soon as there's a dense enough layer of dead wasps to prevent others getting to the food.

I've yet to see a swarm of wasps near any of the traps, just the occasional one or two looking for the entrance which would lead me to believe they were being effective. By your logic, if they were inefficient there's be swarms of wasps about.

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Swarm is a relative term. With respect to wasps it may be anywhere from half a dozen wasps to a few hundred wasps. It's nothing like what you might see when bees swarm.

When I talk about swarm feeding then it's more about the collective feeding behaviour of wasps rather than 'scale' of massed insects which probably paints the wrong picture for beekeepers who I guess are expecting something quite different given their experience of managing bee swarms.

Moreover wasp swarm feeding very much depends on location and other factors such as competing food sources. If a trap is located say out in the middle of a field where there are no other obvious sweet food sources and there are say half a dozen wasps constantly milling about the trap then that trap will almost invariably be a low efficiency wasp trap. With a high efficiency wasp trap under such conditions there simply won't be any wasps milling about the trap. There will simply be the odd sporadic wasp entering the trap and then that's it - nothing.

I love these wasp discussions!!

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Provided people don't make assumptions

I love these wasps!!!!!!!

I hate these wasps, ive had so much trouble with wasps this year, there's nests all over the area, two in different neighbours garage roofs both inaccessible, one in a crack in a nearby tree that's also proving difficult to eradicate, ive had one in the garden they have been and still are a pain in the neck (to put it politely!!) one hive had literally hundreds of wasps attacking it. Ive tried all the tricks in the book glass screen in front of the hive, narrowing it down to a tiny entrance, putting a tube in all made no difference.
Thank god winters coming !, I don't really mean that.
however its been a good year all the same. I meant to enter some honey shows but that didn't happen either due to that TLWMBO !!!!!!!!!!!! laying down the law!

its a cracking hobby though

Dave

Wasps are still 'sniffing' my willow tree, but they are also all over the ivy on the way to school. Usually there are cars parked all over the place so we have to walk very close to the wall with the ivy, and they haven't bothered with us once. I don't know what I was afraid of all those years lol. Thanks Karol, it's down to you that I have lost my fear. Now i know a lot more about them

I watched one getting thrown out of a hive today

Dave /Oscroft said:

I hate these wasps, ive had so much trouble with wasps this year, there's nests all over the area, two in different neighbours garage roofs both inaccessible, one in a crack in a nearby tree that's also proving difficult to eradicate, ive had one in the garden they have been and still are a pain in the neck (to put it politely!!) one hive had literally hundreds of wasps attacking it. Ive tried all the tricks in the book glass screen in front of the hive, narrowing it down to a tiny entrance, putting a tube in all made no difference.
Thank god winters coming !, I don't really mean that.
however its been a good year all the same. I meant to enter some honey shows but that didn't happen either due to that TLWMBO !!!!!!!!!!!! laying down the law!

its a cracking hobby though

Dave

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Depending on the lie of the land there can be as many as 1000 wasp nests per square mile. So it's not so much about the nests that you can see as the one's you can't.

It still sounds as though you could do with a little IWM to make things a bit easier on your bees.

Yesterday I spotted a queen wasp investigating our firewood pile for somewhere to hibernate. She was spending a lot of time exploring nooks and crannies, revisiting one particular place a few times. She stopped to groom herself thoroughly after emerging from particularly cobwebby holes. This pile is last year's wood, will be untouched this year so she should be safe.
I watched her for a few minutes before she disappeared into her chosen place.
It was wonderful to watch.
Still no wasps on the ivy or at the hives.

Erichalfbee said:

Still no wasps on the ivy or at the hives.

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The ivy on the way to school is crawling with them! Twice now I've walked past and been headbutted by one!

Bees extremely busy today and still the odd wasp trying to gain entrance . Wasp traps however are devoid of trapped wasps !


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There's ivy near to my hives and its full of wasps, I have a few wasps picking off dead bees to get nectar out of, and I have also seen the bees evict a wasp today. Bees still busy and keeping them at bay.