# Wasps



## gm560 (Feb 22, 2018)

I have been seeing a lot of wasps flying around my yard, but my search for the nest has come up empty. If i found it I would normally just hit it with my Temprid aerosol after sundown, but I can't locate it. Anyone know how to bait wasps? Figure if I can bait them out I could take out the nest with some Fipronil. Any tips?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I'm in the same boat. Actually found 2 inside the house too.

I order this to try.

Aspectek Wasp Trap - Wasp Trap... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PBY95V3?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share


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## Thick n Dense (May 7, 2019)

Same problem here but they seen to be fixated around the bottom of the over hand in my house. They may have made a nest in one part..

I have a cone style trap that only catches flys lol... but i think the right bait is the trick.

@g-man the amazon link provided, a user used broth... interesting. 
What are you planning on using ?


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## gm560 (Feb 22, 2018)

I think I may have found them. I saw a lot of activity around some outdoor speakers I have mounted under an awning. I can't see well enough to verify, but I am thinking the nest may be back there. I will inspect further this evening so I don't risk getting attacked.


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## Thick n Dense (May 7, 2019)

Couldn't wait for the trap to work so sprayed with Cyszmic CS. dark and can't see well but already found 2 wasps affected on the windows, seemed to work great in combination of waiting for night fall & Cyszmic.

I wonder if I didn't get them all and they don't die from residual, if they'll move their nest as I pretty much removed their food supply as well.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@Thick n Dense I used cranberry juice, but the weather turned rainy here. I haven't seen them outside like we used to. I spray cyzmic last month. It did not affect them.


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## Thick n Dense (May 7, 2019)

g-man said:


> @Thick n Dense I used cranberry juice, but the weather turned rainy here. I haven't seen them outside like we used to. I spray cyzmic last month. It did not affect them.


yea, seems the only ones that died were ones that came in direct contact with the spray...


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

It worked with Coca-Cola. @wardconnor would approve. I added cyzmic inside to ensure they died.


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## Thick n Dense (May 7, 2019)

g-man said:


> It worked with Coca-Cola. @wardconnor would approve. I added cyzmic inside to ensure they died.


How many you catch ?

I caught 1 with the DIY pop bottle trap....

Do we think its the tunnel entry to that trap that really helps ?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I think the tunnel helps to keep them in until the insecticide finishes them.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

4 floating in there today.


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## dfw_pilot (Jan 28, 2017)

I spray wasps like this:


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

dfw_pilot said:


> I spray wasps like this:


I was there. I saw it. :nod:


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## Spammage (Apr 30, 2017)

dfw_pilot said:


> I spray wasps like this:


Absolutely hysterical. :lol:


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

I've got a lot of yellow jacket activity under my front porch behind a brick column going into the ground. These little guys are working tirelessly on something big and it has me worried because there are so many. They're playing offense now and won't bother you but I have a feeling once they finish working on their nest they'll turn into the nasty little a holes I remember from my childhood. Called Do My Own and they recommended Tempo Dust followed by Suspend Polyzone. I bought both and plan to squirt the dust between the cracks in the decking and shag it inside. It's only about a 2 foot drop from decking to soil, hopefully it lands on target. If not I have a plan that involves a ballon filled with Tempo and a BB gun...:bandit:. After I get this situation handled I plan to use fipronil in bait stations.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@Grass Clippins the article has an interesting bait:



> Each can of chicken meat yielded about 150 ml of chicken juice. The chicken juice was filtered through a filter paper to remove large particles and was diluted with 450 ml deionized water. The diluted juice (600 ml) was mixed with 1.6 ml of fipronil (Termidor SC) and 30 g of granular polyacrylamide hydrogel (total 630 g), resulting in 0.025% (wt/vol) fipronil liquid bait absorbed in the hydrogel.


I might try chicken stock + cymzic next.


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

@g-manDid you notice they used miracle grow water storing crystals to soak up the juice? Pretty smart.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I did. Soil Moist will do the same or an unused baby diaper. Since I have that container thing from amazon, I will just pour some chicken stock and add cyzmic.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Grass Clippins said:


> After I get this situation handled I plan to use fipronil in bait stations.


Fipronil works great on yellowjackets. If you can locate the nest in the ground, foundation, or wall, you can also spray the entrance of the nest with fipronil when the nest is quiet (like shortly after sunset just before it gets really dark) -- it takes surprisingly little product, and the nest will be empty within a few days.

One caution with fipronil is that you need to keep it away from any place that beneficial pollinators (honeybees or bumblebees, for example) will pick it up. So definitely keep fipronil away from flower beds, clover, etc.


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

@ken-n-nancy I heard that as well but couldn't get a straight answer from Do My Own on using it as a soil drench. A say soil drench because I'm not interested in hanging around long enough to get a proper spray :lol: Do you have any experience with Tempo? The reviews have me feeling optimistic it will take care of it.


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## gm560 (Feb 22, 2018)

Thats what I was looking for with the chicken stock. I saw other people mention lacing cat food with fipronil as a bait, but I was scared I would end up poisoning a neighborhood cat. They are pretty crafty so it would be difficult to keep them away if they decided they wanted it. Luckily I found my problem and eliminated it with the Temprid Aerosol I always have handy for these situations.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Grass Clippins said:


> @ken-n-nancy I heard that as well but couldn't get a straight answer from Do My Own on using it as a soil drench.
> 
> A say soil drench because I'm not interested in hanging around long enough to get a proper spray :lol: Do you have any experience with Tempo? The reviews have me feeling optimistic it will take care of it.


I've never used Tempo. I've had such good success with Taurus SC that I haven't had to go any further.

It really takes surprisingly little. If you can see the entrance to the hive, then just a 2-second spray of Taurus SC, mixed according to label directions, sprayed into the entrance, is all that will be needed. You'll be in and out before any insects knew what is going on. That said, it wouldn't hurt to have an escape route planned beforehand, but I've never found particular haste to be necessary.


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

Update: I have a couple steps that make it difficult to locate entry/exit #1. Last night I carefully removed the step treads to get a better look at things. I also had to move a lot of leaves around but stopped short when I noticed some activity. It's still tough to see but I think I've located my target within a few inches. Tonight I need to move a few more leaves and look down through the decking to flag my target.

This morning I was out, doing my thing, and noticed some new activity...entry/exit #2? These weren't there yesterday. It's approximately 20 feet northeast of entry/exit #1. I'm glad I noticed these because my original exit strategy would have run me straight into entry/exit #2, which also happens to be directly under where I drink coffee every morning. Again I have a decent idea of where they're going but still need to move some leaves. I had no idea there were so many leafs under the porch, it's only about 18" to 24" off the ground.

Activities is picking up boys...I'm not kidding when I say that during the day we have a constant stream of two to three moving in and out every few seconds from both holes and they're moving quickly. It's going down tonight, Operation Dust Drop. Hopefully I've planned enough to avoid a Black Hawk Down situation...... Not afraid to admit that I'm a little scared but trying to act brave for my 2 1/2 year old son :lol: :shocked: :lol:

Entry/exit #1 is about a foot to the right of my flashlight beam behind the column in the picture below. I just took out a holly a few weeks ago so the area looks nasty and is getting a make over once the dust settles (pun intended).


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## dicko1 (Oct 25, 2019)

One of the more unique ways I've used to kill a wasp nest is to simply invert a glass bowl over the entrance. It has to be relatively level ground so they cant escape under the rim. Because they can see sky they will not bother digging a new entrance and instead will just bang their heads against the glass for days until they starve to death.

I dont think it applies to this situation but is just an interesting story.

I've also used Taurus SC, Fiprinil, on nests. It's non agitating, doesnt rile them up, and just a small spritz is all that it takes to nuke the entire nest.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the time I put a computer fan over a nest entrance. They were sliced to bits by the fan blade and took a few days to empty the nest.


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

I suited up and waited for night to fall. Although the hive had clearly gone in for the night I still noticed one or two flying around the area so they must leave out a scout at all times, very smart. I was picking up leaves with my trash picker but still couldn't see the actual hole on either site so I got the rake and went at it again. This brought a few out but nothing major. I started on the smaller/newer hole by the front door to test my method. I got directly above the activity and shot the dust straight down on them through the deck slots. Temp Dust  doesn't have any knock down power but as more came out I could tell they definitely didn't like what was happening. Thankfully they had no idea I was only a couple feet above them so I kept going until I covered about a 2 square foot area. From the smell of this stuff I believe it's 99% talcum powder and 1% cyfluthrin which is nice because some of it hangs in the air before falling to the ground, similar to drywall dust. I believe this is why a lot of people use it in soffits.

When I got to the bigger nest I didn't notice any activity so I believe these were two separate nest. I followed the same steps as site 1 but this time noticed significantly more activity, this is a big hive. I dusted about a 2 square foot area again and got out of there because it was getting pretty bad. I watched from inside as they attacked my flashlight for a few minutes and then everything stopped. I gave it awhile and then went outside to sweep some of the tempo dust that got on the decking through the cracks, all was quiet.

It wasn't until this morning that I noticed my flashlight is covered in paralyzed yellow jackets. According to the MOA this stuff doesn't kill them immediately, it paralyzes them so they can't eat or drink. I win , sort of. The dust on my flashlight tells me that I probably got it all over my tomatoe and cucumber plants as well. I'm going to rinse these off to save my pollinators, hopefully.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Thanks for reporting on how it went. We'll be interested to hear what happens in a week or so... Hopefully you won't have a problem with them any longer!


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

@****o1 Nice! In my youth I once tried to drop the mower deck on a yellow jacket hole, that didn't work out to well.

@ken-n-nancy no problem, thanks for the advice. I plan to give it a week and then I'll get those leaves out from under there and do a blanket application of Suspend Polyzone (deltamethrin) for good measure. Believe it or not I think I may have found a third hive today. I guess they are looking for shelter from all the rain we've had down here.


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## Hapa512 (Mar 22, 2020)

I've been battling wasps myself for the last several week. I live by a green belt and I'm pretty certain they probably have a nest somewhere in there.

Its going down today, I watched a vid on youtube on how to make a trap. It was pretty cheap I spent about $8.00, including the tasty Chicken and Tuna cat food. It consists of a storage bin, two liter bottle of soda, cat food, vinegar and also some surfactant.

I wanted to immediate satisfaction so I built the trap, and I also ordered some Taurus SC for some other areas.

I hope I'm able to get a good kill in today...Also added some vinegar because I don't want to kill any good bee's.

Hoping that the Texas temp will heat up that box today and attract some hungry wasps...LOL


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

@Hapa512 From what I read/watched, if you use a protein bait you shouldn't attract many honey bees. Happy Hunting.


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## Hapa512 (Mar 22, 2020)

Grass Clippins said:


> @Hapa512 From what I read/watched, if you use a protein bait you shouldn't attract many honey bees. Happy Hunting.


I would think I would want to kill honey bee's being that I'm allergic to them. If I get stung its strait to the hospital for me...LOL

We have a vegetable garden so we need them Honey Bee's....The wasp's are more of a irritation to me being they are in the lawn rolling around and enjoying my grass...


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

I found you.... :twisted:


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

I finally had some time today to dig up these hives. The Tempo Dust did a really good job of killing almost all the yellow jackets. Both hives had four layers loosely stacked like pancakes. In between the layers I found a few newly hatched adult that weren't able to fly. The newly hatched adults were wallowing in the dirt so I hit them with a little dust. I'm glad I dug these up because I was going for a total kill, no survivors.


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## rhanna (Jun 7, 2017)

I know this isn't a normal wasp but I have no idea what it is. I've seen them flying around the house lately and they are huge. They kind of look like hornets or maybe cicada killers. I just want to know if I need to try and kill them or leave them alone. They don't seem very aggressive and I usually only see 1 flying alone at a time.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Grass Clippins said:


> I finally had some time today to dig up these hives. The Tempo Dust did a really good job of killing almost all the yellow jackets. Both hives had four layers loosely stacked like pancakes. In between the layers I found a few newly hatched adult that weren't able to fly. The newly hatched adults were wallowing in the dirt so I hit them with a little dust. I'm glad I dug these up because I was going for a total kill, no survivors.


Glad to hear that you had success!

I was reminded of this thread today, because of a new finding in my lawn...

The prior time I mowed the lawn four days ago, I had been stung twice by something in the far corner of our lawn. When I was stung, I high-tailed it away from the area, just in case there were more of whatever it was that stung me. When I returned to the scene of the crime a minute later, there was no sign of whatever stung me, so I restarted the mower and finished mowing the lawn without incident. However, I had also been stung about three weeks earlier in that same section of our lawn, so I figured there must be a nest of some sort of stinging insect over there somewhere.

This afternoon, knowing that I'd be mowing the lawn tonight, I decided to head over to that corner of our lawn and see if I could see any insect activity. It took a while of watching quietly, but after a few minutes, I spotted a yellowjacket flying down to the ground and saw it go into a hole in the ground just inside the edge of the lawn. When I headed over for a closer look, I could see the busy entrance to what must be an underground hive, with a yellowjacket going in or out about every three seconds or so!

I marked the hive location with a stick and went to get my sprayer which still had a little fipronil mixed up (Taurus SC). I ended up spraying into the hive two rounds of about two seconds each. My prior experience is that should be sufficient to wipe out the entire nest in a couple days.

Tonight when I mowed the lawn, there was still a lot of yellowjacket activity at the hive (as expected), so I simply gave them a wide berth in that corner, not lingering near the hive at all and making a long detour to other portions of the lawn after passing near by.

I'll try to remember to report back in a couple days to say if the small bit of fipronil was successful. I expect it will be, but we'll see...


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

@ken-n-nancy Once you have a good knock down I'd love to see that nest. Curious if you get a total kill at the nest with fipronil or if you'll still have those newly hatched adults that aren't able to fly. My nest were just a few inches below ground.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Grass Clippins said:


> @ken-n-nancy Once you have a good knock down I'd love to see that nest. Curious if you get a total kill at the nest with fipronil or if you'll still have those newly hatched adults that aren't able to fly. My nest were just a few inches below ground.


I wasn't planning to dig the nest out, simply to avoid destroying any turf and leaving a hole, but since you've asked nicely and I'm curious, maybe I'll go ahead and do so and post some photos. I'm kind of curious how large the nest is. I would expect fipronil to take out the whole nest within a week, given the mechanism of action. We'll see...


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> I marked the hive location with a stick and went to get my sprayer which still had a little fipronil mixed up (Taurus SC). I ended up spraying into the hive two rounds of about two seconds each. My prior experience is that should be sufficient to wipe out the entire nest in a couple days.
> 
> Tonight when I mowed the lawn, there was still a lot of yellowjacket activity at the hive (as expected), so I simply gave them a wide berth in that corner, not lingering near the hive at all and making a long detour to other portions of the lawn after passing near by.
> 
> I'll try to remember to report back in a couple days to say if the small bit of fipronil was successful. I expect it will be, but we'll see...


Today, being Monday, was the third day (back on Friday) since having sprayed the two short bursts of fipronil, about two seconds each, directly into the entrance hole in the nest in the ground.

I checked on the activity at the nest on both Saturday and Sunday, and the hive still seemed pretty active. Today, though, when I checked it, I did see a yellowjacket or two going in and out of the nest, at a much lower rate than the prior days, and also saw a few yellowjackets on the ground near the nest writhing around oddly. Seems like the fipronil may be having the desired effect.

I'll check again tomorrow and see if activity has diminished to zero yet...


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> I'll check again tomorrow and see if activity has diminished to zero yet...


Rain got in the way of re-checking the next day. However, I did check yesterday, and in watching the hive entrance for 2 minutes, I did not see any yellowjackets enter or exit the nest. There was one yellowjacket flying around near me while I was watching the nest, but it didn't appear to make any attempt to go into the nest.

Just for good measure, I sprayed a 5-second burst of the Taurus SC spray (fipronil) directly into the nest entrance, which pretty much completely drenched the entrance tunnel.

Afterwards, I mowed the lawn without generating the wrath of a swarm of yellowjackets! I did see another yellowjacket flying about (maybe the same one?) when mowing the ground above the nest, so I didn't tarry there at all to watch.

Too many things going on this holiday weekend to dig up the nest for curiosity's sake -- I'll plan to do that next week.


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

@ken-n-nancy If you weren't planning on digging it up then don't do it just for me, I appreciate the gesture. I think it's fairly common practice to destroy the nest down here (the south) because our winters are also cold enough to do the job.


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