Plugging up holes and dealing with irritated yellow jackets
Posted By RichC on August 27, 2019
We have more bees and wasps appearing around our house this summer, on the other hand, we have always had nests in the woods but this year a few more have moved closer to the house.
When preparing to stain the fence this year, I had to glue 3/8” dowels in the carpenter bees holes before staining, as well as squirting insecticide in their holes and nest whether in the ground or in the fence boards/posts.
Lately though, I’ve been dealing with with those “bee looking insects” we call yellow jackets or “German Wasps;” all are in the wasp family. I’ve been trying to use a liquid insecticide with pyrethrin, but really probably need to buy the dust and a small blower to eradicate them close to the house. The less aggressive mud wasps (mud dauber) are always around but I am less concerned as I can comfortably use a broom handle to scrap loose their mud tubes and smash the larvae when they are less active.
I think we have always had a colony nearby, but they are much more on my radar since I’ve been working on trim house painting and sealing up cracks. Also their numbers are higher during the peak heat of summer and since I’m caulking up a crack above our garage door where they “likely” have built a nest (???). They are now swarming more that usual and have decided to buzz inside the garage looking for a new entrance when the garage doors are open. No stings so far … but I’m crossing my fingers and thinking twice about walking around on the garage floor after knocking a few down with some “ant spray” (the only insecticide I have left).
Checking my identification with an image from the Internet on the left – my photo on the right.
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