Wasps and Yellowjackets

At our old house (we recently moved) the wasps and yellowjackets would build nests under the deck, and crawl up thru the cracks when you walked across the deck. That was the signal to go under the deck and spray them.

Here at our new house, we installed an AG pool. So the wasps and yellowjackets are constantly building nests under the coping. Easy enough to use "wasp spray" under the coping every few days, but now we're building a deck around the pool, and since the poll is dug into the side of a mild hill, we wont have room to get under the pool deck.

So ... how do you folks deal with wasps and yellowjackets?

Try foam sprays. They work much better at using gravity to flow down into nests. They are the ONLY easy way to get rid of ground nests.

Unless you have a skunk. No foolin'! Skunks view wasps and yellowjackets the way my wife views chocolate!:rolleyes: It's their favorite snack and they are pretty immune to their stings. Sometimes they just dig 'em out and eat 'em--other times they spray them:eek: and them eat them. We had that happen when I was a kid. Dad got stung by a ground nest. That night (it was summer) the house reeked of skunk. The next morning, there was a big, skunky smelling hole in the ground--and no more yellow jackets!:D

Foam spray is the way to go - we also have many wasps, yet another reason I really like my resin structure on the pool, it is blow molded resin, so no crevices for the buggers to set in. Unfortunately, like anything, there's always the one that tries, they seem to only build inside the uprights, since the resin pool is held together with one big quarter turn lock nut on the top of each upright, it's as simple as taking the nut off and spraying down the hole filling the cavity with foam.

The Non Chemical Method:

Here is a little trick that I heard on some environmentalists program & tried out this summer....

Take a brown paper bag ( or several if you have a big problem), the thicker the paper, the better as it needs to be able to hold up to rains for a while.
Blow it up ( like a balloon),
and hang it around where you see wasps & bees nests.

The insects then believe that there are other nests around & they tend to move on.


I tried this about 6 weeks ago. as I noticed that there was two areas in the soffit of the house ( in under the roof rain drains) that wasps were crawling in & out of. There were constantly wasps on my deck and I have three toddlers that I was afraid might get stung...
( I did get stung twice getting out of the hot tub)
I couldn't buy a wasp trap because there wasn't really anywhere to put it that the kids wouldn't get into it & I hate to use poisons for the same reason ( although I would have if necessary).

I hung up my big paper bag between the two areas, and about 10 days later, no more wasps!
I can't believe that actually worked, but it did

The bag has since been totally destroyed from rain, but the wasps have not returned

Good Luck!

That's just awesome!!!!
I gotta try that, every year, I get them in the same area in my roof, I can't get the spary to them since it's too far up inside, I even took the whole soffit off once without any more luck.

If you want something more durable than a paper bag you can try a Waspinator. I know a few people using them to keep wasps away from problem areas of their yard and they do work.

You can also make a DIY wasp trap out of a plastic pop bottle. Cut the top round part off, invert it into the bottle and staple it together. Add some Coke or sugar water as bait and hang it near the problem area. The wasps will fly in but can't get out.

just spoke with my mom & she had tried the paper-bag trick next to a Bee's nest... the bees then abandoned their nest & within three days she had no more bees in her yard :)

Well, I guess we all get stuck in a rut sometimes. "bug spray" seems to have been a staple, always had a can in the garage since I was a kid in the 60s, never even gave it a second thought until last week when I posted this question.

Exactly the kind of responses I was hoping for, THANKS!