Wasps

[Ken L]

Looks like the weather has been just right for the little black and yellow swines and the garden is alive with them. Having them about is a pain for eating outdoors, especially when you're allergic to the stings.

 

No idea where the nest is, so I've been looking for a slow acting poison bait that will be taken back to the nest to kill them that way. Trouble is, the only one I can find on-line is in New Zealand.

 

Any ideas?

 

 

Edit: It seems that the active ingredient in the NZ wasp baits is the slow acting insecticide fipronil. You can buy this as flea and tick treatment for dogs, so I'll be ordering some to make up some wasp baits of my own.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Ken L

[chesters1]

Hard things to track but i bet the nests are in your roof in the house or in a shed ,in hot weather they will be bringing water to the nests so get a pair of binoculars and see if there are wasps going into the roof .

Not heard of anything that wasps can take back to the nest we live under the EUs glare so anything that works most probably banned.

The spray can wasp killer will not work unless you spray the nest itself so powder best.

I use a 4mtr landing net handle with a 50ml syringe hot glued to the screw end and half fill it with powder and its pushed hard against the hole they are using puffing the contents into it so the wasps pick it up on their bodies and take it in 3hrs later all dead.

I generaly kill all the queens i see chewing wood in the spring (they have a liking for smooth wood not rough) so 1 nest in the roof this year and 2 in one sheds roof (its insulated so they go between outer roof and ceiling) now gone.

If its hot you can hear them cooling the nest by hanging on and flying making a droning noise flapping their wings

 

Saying that they are very good for the garden aphids are easy to catch and take home but they are very secretive and find ways of not entering a shed by the obvious route ,we had one last year where they went in a knot hole and crawled behind a metal box and made a nest under the shelf next to it ,only the odd stray hitting the inside of the window gave the game away

Edited August 6, 2019 by chesters1

[Tigger]

I've got on top of my wasp invasion with my bottle traps i've caught hundreds and hundreds of 'em!

I've got some made out of old placcy milk cartons and some made out of old jam jars. Just drill a small hole, say 5 millimeters iin the center of the lid, smear some jam under the lid and around the upper inside inch or so of the jar.

Fill the jar up about two thirds to 3/4 with water and screw the lid back on. Place the jar in a spot where you see the wasps moochin about and watch them drown themselves. I've caught loads of flies also...brilliant!

I've got 6, 6 pint milk cartons and two jam jars set and they are working a treat.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Tigger

[chesters1]

They like honey aswell ,although some people think if honey bees all die we will starve wasps and hundreds of other critters eat nectar so polinate flowers as they did for millions of years before honey bees were introduced here

 

Not sure how the traps work do wasps tell other wasps where the traps are like bees tell other bees where nectar is ,no matter if wasps drowned the dead dont tell tales! But its strange honey bees rarely end up in them !?! I cant amagine the holes are smaller than honey bees but allow only wasps in! Perhaps the wasps are programmed to investigate small holes incase its a bee nest?

Edited August 6, 2019 by chesters1

[Tigger]

 

The holes I drill are too small for bumble bees and I haven't seen a honey bee round here in years!

The wasps just sniff out the jam. I tried golden syeup, honey etc, but ordinary strawberry jam seems to attract them way better than anything else.

 

I used to make these traps when I was a kid, the wasp lands on the lid, goes in the jar via the hole starts to eat the jam but inevitably slips or flys into the water where it can't get out. I looked at my traps earlier and it was about 1 1/2 inches deep in a writhing mass of drowning wasps. I don't like to kill em but I have to as they're landing in large numbers on my parrots food and p!$$!ng me off!

[chesters1]

But does it annoy the parrots?

Myself i would put the parrot food in a tin or a parrot just to annoy the wasps

AH i amagined wasps flying off with sun flower seeds but you probably mean fruit ,i am sure the parrots will share and the wasps themselves earn it removing garden insects in return.i kill them when they invade my home or sheds where they live outside of my garden is no concern of mine so long as they stop beasts eating my veg i am happy

Hopefully your neighbours like parrots we lived next to one who poxy thing sqauked all day ,we were happy when it flew away and he got a goldfish

Plenty of honey bees around here they are pretty common nowadays books take away the mystery of keeping them and hives are easily obtained ,plenty of hornets and foreign wasp things aswell

We also get wood wasps but they are laid back and only sting when you disturb the nest or after the queens leave and they are jobless

Theres other wild bees as big as wasps its not just bumble bees in britain but as i said i have only ever seen wasps in a wasp trap

Edited August 6, 2019 by chesters1

[Tigger]

 

The parrots are sotting eggs and chicks, they need the food and tha wasps could sting em....the macaws are a bit to expensive to risk being stung by marauding wasps....they do sceem all day! If the neighbours don't like em they can move.

I don't have goldfish but have some Caribe and exodon paradoxus.

 

Caribe....

 

 

Exodon paradoxus/bucktoothed tetras....

 

 

 

 

The caribes have grown quite a bit since those pictures, might need to swap em out for some fresh imports in november/december, maybe try some Piraya.

[chesters1]

Silly fish i had some piranas and everytime i entered the garage (i had 30 tanks) they beat their noses to pulp trying to get away ,in the end i got shot of them kept a couple of big pacu and concentrated on sp geophagus selling them for a big profit until they became common .

Unfortunately it was expensive running so many tanks so i gave up and flogged everything to another fool for a small loss

I sold the pump (a very nice japanese one) to the creel in aldershot for their tank (huge overkill it was designed to supply 40 tanks)where it ran for 30 years until it finaly died

I bought the complete aquarium from what was badshot garden center ,all except the blower for the air (huge noisy thing) and they almost gave it away ,steralised everything and installed it in a double garage , oxoneised every drop of water as the fish i kept were hard to raise in tap water so it was revere osmosis then treated with ozone in 50 gallon drums after ageing with rain water and peat to get the PH just right ,the buggers were treated better than my kids lol

It was the days of under gravel filters and power heads just coming on the market and it was cheaper to buy one pump than 30 power heads and the air could run corner carbon filters aswell ,ow external filters are cheap compared but not good for young fish

We actually got a 3 spine stickleback to breed (it was called bobo) the kids kept bringing fish up from the river lol

Your fish look different to mine (if i can remember back 30+ years) mine were red underneath but far more toothy unless mine needed the dentist?

Edited August 6, 2019 by chesters1

[Tigger]

 

Yeah I know exactly what you mean about skittish fish bashing into the glas. I got these as little tiddlers last December, just in from brazil and they've grown quickly and arn't as skittish as the usual natteri which Is more than likely what you had. They all go darker as they get older and mature, especially when in breeding mode. The teeth are there, just hidden behind their lips.

I never bother to test the water once the tank and filters had cycled. I just do a 50% water change once a week using a python hose....no messin with buckets or ewt!

[Huge_Vitae]

It’s a good hobby I enjoyed for many years, actually have several tanks, including a massive jewel six footer heaters, blowers etc in the garage, keep meaning to shift them on but haven’t got a round tuit!

 

But my biggest tanks are eight cubic metres each, got three of them.

 

Seems to me that all you have to do Tigger is get your fish to eat wasps and then it’s win win!