Should I remove this? It is under the roof overhang.
Wasps?
Is it near a door or a traffic pattern? Anyone at your house allergic?
That would be a difficult call as wasps can be pollinators also. DH is terrified of them but I am a live and let live person when it comes to wasps.
What are you deciding to do?
I am deathly allergic to wasp stings. If I don't have an epi pen w/me I quickly take a benedryl and get to the hospital or emergency room. Do your neighbors a favor and get rid of that wasp nest as the wasps don't just stay near the nest and they (or you) might be allergic and not even know it. Wasp stings can make people very sick.
Ann
That is miserable. We have a good friend that is severely allergic. He all but hibernates in summertime. I am reminded that I am blessed on that count!
I don't think I am allergic, but luckily I have not had a sting. One nest is up on the 2nd floor the other in the driveway roof.This is why I posted this..to see all sides of the dilemma.
They seem to always nest in a protected overhang area. There may be lots of them on my property, but the only ones I knock down are the ones near doorways. Dirt Daubers make mud nests, and I leave them alone where ever they pop up, but the nests of paper wasps come down. I have pets and toddler grandkids, so I won't leave any near door ways or the pool area.
Now if we could just figure out an environmentally friendly way to get rid of mosquitos......I keep wanting to put up a bat house, but don't really have an area that fits their requirements since the box needs to be so high and with unobstructed access.
Does the nest look like Dirt Daubers?
Not dirt dobbers, definately wasps. I usually try to spray them right after dark to catch them at home and prevent retaliation, but today I just knocked two down at a house in Haltom City with a rake. They were very sluggish and slow moving due to the weather and I just stomped on them before they could take to flight. Would not have tried that a month ago though. Sometimes just bumping the wall with a broom or shutting the door can set them off if to close to the door. They gotta go. I am not allergic to them, but my wife is. I got stung by a few yellow jackets while sweeping our front porch about a month or so ago. My wife is an REO agent and keeps an epi pen with her when she gets new properties.
That sounds alittle too daring. Any other ways to get rid of them?
Spray them after dark with wasp spray...it has a stream that carries pretty far...and spraying at night, ensures they are home and sleepy and sluggish...
I took two cans of wasp spray under the high portion of my deck after dark to get a nest one evening. Worked great. Don't take a flashlight, that will alert them and make them fly. The next morning I returned and knocked the nest down and squished anything left. There was a pile of red wasps below on the ground. I wore a long sleeved shirt, gloves scarf and hat just in case I stirred them up; but all was well.
I try to rid them because they eat my caterpillars.
I am so glad to hear from some of you who got rid of the wasps. Dirt dobbers don't normally sting but I don't get in their way. Wasps go out of their way to sting and can really make you sick. I'm all for letting nature be but fire ants and wasps are 2 that I will try to get rid of. I'm allergic to fire ants, too. The day after several bite me my stomach doesn't feel well and I am lethargic. I feel really sick.
Ann
I do not like about dirt dobbers very much either. I read something a while back that said they go mostly after spiders, which are beneficial for pest prevention in gardens, but the ones around here were constantly carrying off honey bees which are very beneficial for pollination.
I think paper wasps (what I have incorrectly called yellow jackets my whole life) eat a lot of damaging insects/larvae in the garden.
Never seen mud daubers carrying bees, but when you bust therie mud nests open, dried up spiders come out.
If a nest is near (say, within 6-8 feet or so) of a doorway or active area, I see no reason not to remove it. The only time I've been stung was decades ago, reaching into some jeans that came in off the laundry line one morning(anyone remember drying clothes outside?) to straighten out the pocket. I got stung and my mom took the jeans outside, everted the pocket and 3 wasps flew out! I guess the weather had turned cool and they went in there to sleep warmly thru the night!
If you grab them or they feel threatened, they will sting. But if you get stung working around the garden, that wasp could just as likely have come from next door. Adults feed mostly caterpillars to their larvae, eating nectar for themselves.
EDIT; the type that build paper cell nests hanging from a stem are Polistes genus. The 'true' yellow jacket is Vespula genus.
http://bexar-tx.tamu.edu/IPM/Household/F1/waspjackets.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes
Carl
This message was edited Nov 12, 2008 8:18 AM
This message was edited Nov 12, 2008 8:49 AM
Carl ~ I agree, for all the mud tubes I have broken open, I've never seen bees only spiders in them. I will respect anyones' wishes should they chose not to be around them due to allergy or just feel uncomfortable around them. I would love to have bee hives but DH says no way. He is terrified of wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, honey bees, you name it. That means I am the one that sprays, knocks down, etc.
A couple of summers back, I walked into the bedroom and heard a humming noise. I found bees were swarming and moving into the fireplace chimney. I keep firewood laid so I light the fire to discourage them from settling in. It was warm and had to use a/c but I couldn't let them move in.
http://www.biologie.uni-r.de/Zoologie/Strohm/gudrun_herzner/index.html
May not have been daubers. The sixth one from the bottom looks like what I saw hunting honey bees in my garden. Might be called beewolves. All I have seen in dauber nest too are spiders, but I like my spiders, except for black widows and brown recluses.
My grandmother would use a peice of bailing wire to secure a cone of newspaper on the end of a broom handle. Then she would light it with a match and shove it over the wasp's nest. The wasps would fall to the ground with singed wings where she could stomp them!
Very dramatic to watch!
Carl
No way! LOL I ain't gonna try that one... 8 ) I'd light the woods on fire. Amazing what the older generations used to make do with or without.
woods?
She did this a coupla times every summer under the eaves of the house or on the front porch! I was just a kid and I thought she's gonna catch the house on fire - but really, she would only hold the flaming cone on the nest for maybe 2 seconds. The house was never in danger.
I will stick with my sneak attack at night when they can't see me. lol!
Carl ~ re: hanging clothes out. In an effort to be more environmentally "green" I recently added a retractable clothesline after I lost my clothesline in a windstorm in 1999. I have enjoyed hanging clothes out as this summer was so dry. I found I missed the smell and feel of line dried clothes. Now, I hear about WASPS in pockets??? Don't do that to me!!! LOL
I had a nest outside my deck door that I HAD to get rid of as they kept coming inside & DH detests them..also I was afraid they would sting our dogs. It was too high for me to remove them safely so unfortunately I had to use pesticide.
On a good note I had so much basil in my garden this year that it atrracted a lot of honey bees..I was so happy as they are really good for the envirnoment.
I think there were more bees on my Frostweed than any other plant this year. Although the Blanket flowers are popular now that the Frostweed is dying back.
anyone have a Praying Mantid in their garden? I did this year..only one survived & barely made a dent in the pest control..I had a huge problem with grasshoppers. I still see the odd one! Next year I am going to get a lot more Praying Mantids!!
Careful what you wish for. A few are ok, but not in my butterfly and hummer garden.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/3053/
Poor manarch. I bought over 100 mantid eggs on EBAY last year. You really only end up with a couple of mantids that survive canniblism (spell?) out of each egg. Place the eggs high on a limb or string so that as they hatch the wind can blow them away from each other or they will hang around and eat each other. I forget what it is called but they have an organic bait that spreads disease to grasshoppers, but not real confident in that. Guineas eat their share but mine spend more time on my neighbors iris farm next door than on my land and they are loud too.