Seeing wasps buzzing around your yard is pretty common during the summer, but seeing a lot of them can be a sign that a colony is nearby. If you find a nest in your yard or around your house, you may be wondering: do you need to get rid of wasp nests? If so, when is the best time to get rid of the nest, and how should you go about doing it? In this article, we’ll answer these and other questions.
What You'll Learn Today
Should a Wasp Nest Be Removed?
Wasps are scary-looking, and many of them have a mean sting; but they can actually be beneficial to have around.
Wasps hunt various pest insects to feed to their young, and they themselves eat nectar. As such, they help control insect populations in your yard and also serve as pollinators.
In fact, many wasps pose no threat at all. These are considered solitary wasps; they do not live in large colonies and don’t behave aggressively toward people.
The wasps that get all the attention are called social wasps; these are the hornets, yellowjackets, mud daubers, and paper wasps. They live in colonies numbering from a few dozen to over 1,000, and they can become highly aggressive when disturbed.
If you find a social wasp nest in or around your house, garage, or in a high-traffic area of your yard, it’s important to remove it as quickly and as safely as possible.
This is especially true if anyone in your family is allergic to wasp stings, but even if no one has an allergy, these stings can be extremely painful and itchy.
Any nest that poses a threat to you, your family, or your guests should be removed. And the sooner the better, because the colony will grow throughout the summer and its members will become more aggressive later in the season when the nest is full of larvae.
When Should You Leave a Wasp Nest Alone?
Though getting rid of wasp nests is usually a good idea, there are times when the best thing you can do is leave the nest alone.
If the nest is in an undisturbed area of your yard or a place where no one is likely to encounter it, there’s no need to remove it. Let it be until winter, after the nest’s inhabitants have moved on or died off.
Wasps generally don’t reuse their old nests, but they may build new nests in the same spot year after year. To keep wasps from coming back to a previously used spot, spray the area with peppermint or eucalyptus oil, both of which act as natural deterrents.
If you find an especially large wasp nest, do not disturb it. If it’s in a safe location, it can be left alone; if it needs to be removed, call a professional exterminator.
The same is true of any wasp nest inside the walls or in hard-to-reach spots of your house. Calling a professional service is your best bet, as trying to reach the nest yourself can lead to the wasps getting upset and becoming aggressive.
When Is the Best Time to Get Rid of a Wasp Nest?
If you find a wasp nest on your property and decide to deal with it yourself, you may be wondering when is the best time to act.
Wasp queens begin building their colony in the spring. The colony grows throughout the summer months and is at its largest and most aggressive in the fall.
If you are able to spot a growing colony early in the season, this is the best time to get rid of it. Be proactive and eliminate the nest before the colony has a chance to get bigger.
Regardless of the time of year, you’ll want to remove a problematic wasp nest quickly after identifying and locating it. The longer you try to ignore it, the worse the problem will become.
That said, if you find the nest during the daytime, wait until dusk before removing it. Wasps are most active during the day, and they will return to the nest at night.
By waiting until the evening, you will be able to kill most of the wasps in the colony when destroying the nest, lessening the chances that they will simply rebuild a new nest. What’s more, they will be tired and sluggish in the evening, so you’ll be more likely to avoid being stung.
You can also get rid of a wasp nest early in the morning, but you’ll want to act before dawn to ensure most of the wasps are still in the nest. They become active soon after the sun comes up.
How Do You Get Rid of a Wasp Nest?
Check out this video for a few methods to easily get rid of wasps:
Commercial wasp sprays are by far the easiest method, as they allow you to instantly incapacitate wasps from a safe distance. That said, they are usually made of harsh chemicals that can be bad for the environment.
If you are looking for a greener solution, consider the following options:
Create Your Own Spray
As mentioned above, wasps hate peppermint and eucalyptus. You can create your own eco-friendly wasp spray by mixing several drops of these essential oils in a sprayer full of water.
You can also use plain soapy water, as soap makes it hard for the wasps to fly away and coats their bodies so they quickly suffocate. Mix half a cup of dishwashing liquid with two or three cups of water.
Make sure you use a high-power spray bottle or power washer. Saturate the wasp nest and the surrounding area with the spray to quickly and safely eliminate wasps.
Use Traps
If you want to avoid a potential confrontation and are willing to be patient, you can slowly get rid of wasps in your area by using traps.
You can buy wasp-specific sticky traps which contain wasp attractants. Once the wasps land, they can’t get free; you’ll need to replace the traps every few days as they fill up with dead wasps.
You can also buy liquid-filled bag traps. These use a scented liquid that draws in wasps, trapping and drowning them; again, you will need to replace them often as the bag fills up with wasp carcasses.
You can also make your own traps by filling bowls of water with a mixture of sugar, apple cider vinegar, and dish soap. The sugar and vinegar will draw in the wasps, and the water and soap will quickly kill them.
Dealing With Ground Nests
Some social wasps build nests underground. You may not even know they’re there until you mow over the nest and find yourself under attack from a swarm of angry yellowjackets.
You can get rid of ground colonies by dumping commercial insecticidal dust into the nest opening. But, as with commercial wasp spray, these products can be harmful for the environment.
Instead of insecticidal dust, you can use diatomaceous earth. Dump a generous amount into the nest opening using a bulb duster or paper cup, then quickly leave the nest site.
You can also deal with a ground nest by pouring a bucket of boiling water or warm, soapy water down the opening. You may need to repeat this treatment a couple of times, but eventually it will destroy the nest and its inhabitants.
If the nest is particularly large, call a professional exterminator to deal with it. If it is in an undisturbed location and doesn’t pose any real threat to people or pets, leave it alone until the winter; then, simply fill in the nest opening with fresh dirt or cover it with a rock or board.
Conclusion
Wasps can be good to have around as long as there aren’t too many of them. However, if you have a colony of wasps in a high-traffic area of your property, your best bet is to use one of the methods above to get rid of the nest.
