Spring and summer are humming with budding flowers, bright green grass, light misty rain, and of course, the return of the buzz of wasps, bees and hornets. In this series of articles, The Battles of the Buzz, we will explore different characteristics, habits, prevention, and removal of all those buzzing yellow and black visitors. We’ll start with wasps! So read on to learn all about what to know about them and look for the rest of the articles in this series!
Wasp 101
Wasps are a type of insect. There are more than 500 species of wasps in Canada, and most are social creatures that live in colonies ranging from half a dozen to 15,000 members. The most common pest wasps are yellow jackets, paper wasps, and mud daubers. While wasps are generally seen as a dangerous nuisance, we want to mention that they do play a significant role in their ecosystem. They are beneficial because they prey on insect pests in agricultural crops and gardens. That said, their stinger sure makes us want to get them out of our backyard.
We all know that wasps carry with them a painful stinger, and unfortunately, they can sting repeatedly. For a minority of people the venom in their sting causes anaphylactic shock which can be fatal. In general, wasps use their stinger for killing prey and also for self-defense. One interesting characteristic of their stingers is that because the venom contains a pheromone, other wasps sense when one has used its stinger and this causes them all to become more aggressive. Hence, this is really important: try not to swat a wasp near its nest or other wasps!
Wasps can be aggressive and territorial. This is one reason why the removal of a wasp nest and eradication of a wasp infestation is best left to a professional pest control service, like Sentry Pest Control.
It is very important to eradicate wasp nests as soon as you find them so you don’t have issues as the season matures. While wasp nests will be seen from early spring on, they tend to increase their activity in the late summer, which is when colonies produce males and new queens. The males fly away to mate and the queens then find a place to hibernate. Then, as the summer ends, the cold weather in the fall (and ultimately by winter) eventually kills the males, workers, and foundation queen.
How to Identify Wasps
A typical wasp is hairless, unlike common species of bees. Wasp bodies have three parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. The thorax is joined to the abdomen by a constricted petiole giving the appearance of a thin/slender waist. The thorax has three pairs of legs and two pairs of membranous wings which are used for flying. Like most insects, the head is where their mouth, sensory organs, compound eyes, and segmented antennae are found. The last section of the abdomen in female wasps is modified into the egg-laying ovipositors.
The body size and colour of a wasp varies depending on species. Yellow jackets are very colourful with bright yellow, white, and black markings all over their bodies. Paper wasps, on the contrary, are relatively long and thin-bodied (16 – 25 mm), long-legged, and have yellow-reddish and black markings. Mud daubers are still different, with very long bodies compared to their wasp cousins, 13 – 25mm long, with either long or stalked abdomen. Mud daubers are not as colourful - they are mainly black with only some pale-yellow markings.
What to Know About Wasps Nests
Wasp nests are found in numerous areas in and around homes and buildings and will vary in shape, size and location depending on the species. For instance, paper wasps create their nests by chewing and gluing plant material together to create a paper-like material. Their nests are layered and comb-like. Paper wasps will build hanging nests from trees, the eaves of roofs, holes in the wall, and even around decking or playground equipment.
Yellow jackets, while they also build their nests with plant materials. But they can be huge – up to the size of a basketball! Yellow jackets build their nests in the ground, in hollow trees, or inside small structures. So check your sheds, garages, and attics. Sometimes they use former rodent burrows or protected areas under shrubs and rock piles.
Mud daubers build their nests out of mud (hence, their name). A mud dauber nest is about 20-25 mm long. Mud daubers like to build nests in sheltered sites, such as protected building structure and walls.
Paper wasps build single-layered nests from masticated plant matter and attach it to fences, branches, twigs, eaves, door and window frames, exterior joists and soffits. The nest may be exposed or protected in a paper envelope and will house up to 300 paper wasps.
Unusually large numbers of wasps around your home indicates a wasp nest in nearby, and identifying the species present is important for proper wasp nest removal. Call a pest control company, like Sentry Pest Control, to do this for you. Remember that wasps are aggressive and they will defend their nests. In order to avoid accidentally approaching a wasp nest, inspect places around your yard and outside your home all throughout spring and summer; look under your eaves, in trees and shrubs, garden planters, and be careful if you have long grass or lots of holes or mounds on the ground.
What to Know About Wasp Diet and Lifecycle
Many wasps principally feed on nectar, fruit juices, or honey dew from plants. However, the most common wasp pests are actually scavengers or carnivores. They prey on other insects and human food. It is their scavenger behaviour that attracts wasps to our patios and lawns, especially when food, drinks, and garbage are present.
Wasps go through metamorphosis before becoming adults which takes approximately six weeks. After the eggs hatch, larvae feed on insects brought in by stinging female workers for a few weeks. The larvae then enter the pupal stage, a cocoon-like period where they transform into adult wasps over several more weeks. The queen will usually only produces workers at the beginning of the season, and the workers care for the young as the queen continues to lay eggs.
Wasp colonies reach their height during the late summer and early fall. A reproductive generation of males and females is produced around that time of year. Males die shortly after mating, and the rest of the colony dies off as the weather cools. Fertilized queens overwinter and lay eggs in the spring to begin new colonies. Female wasps often hibernate in areas of the house with less traffic such as attics, barns, garages, or other accessible storage spaces. This is partly why, as soon as spring has sprung, it is important to keep an eye out for nests or the wasps themselves!
What to Know about Wasp Removal
It’s never a good idea to try to conduct wasp removal on your own because you could be dealing with an aggressive swarm that goes after you and anyone in the surrounding area. Also, while there is a wide range of pesticides on the market that may help you get rid of your wasp problem, the chemicals in them can be harmful to your health. This is another reason why working with a reputable pest removal specialist is so vital. They will employ extermination chemicals are safe for humans and pets.
Call Sentry Pest Control if you find a nest, see an influx of wasps (or their cousins like bees and hornets), and we will come assess your property. Let us wage this battle for you!
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