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Wasps can be an annoying presence in your yard, building nests, buzzing around your backyard barbecues, and threatening with painful stings. But for those with serious allergies to insect stings, wasps can be life threatening, especially if they set up shop by nesting in and around your home.
Luckily, you have options for keeping these winged invaders from taking over your yard. We’ve tapped Matt Smith, owner of Green Pest Management in Delaware, and David Price, a certified entomologist and director of technical services with Mosquito Joe, to help us identify the best methods for ridding wasps. Whether looking for solutions to prevent wasps from making your house their home or need to take out an existing nest, we have solutions. Here’s how to get rid of wasps.
What attracts wasps to your yard?
The old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure holds true for ridding your yard of wasps. Get rid of wasps outside by eliminating the things attracting them to your home.
- Garbage: “(Wasps) all will seek out food sources that are both sweet and protein-based,” Price says. With that in mind, he suggests wrapping up soda cans before disposing of them, tying garbage bags tightly before dropping them in the trash bin, and cleaning up drippings and food scraps after grilling.
- Flowers: Price points out that wasps, like bees, are attracted to nectar and hence any flowers growing in your yard. “If you have aromatic flowers, you may want to reduce or locate them in the yard where people are not hanging about,” he says.
- Fruit: If you have any fruit trees or bushes in your yard, expect them to attract wasps, Price says. Wasps like rotten fruit best, so pick up fallen fruit before it begins to ferment.
- Water: Wasps require water to hydrate and create their nests, so they’re often attracted to bird baths, puddles, water features, and other standing water in your yard. Remove any water sources you can bear to part with to reduce wasp activity.
The Impact of Wasp Infestations
While wasps don’t typically pose the same destructive threat to your home as termites and carpenter ants, they can if allowed to linger. “Wasps can most definitely damage homes,” Smith says. “They can get into attics and ruin ceilings and sheetrock.”
Price points out that since wasps chew on wood, they have the ability to destroy a home’s structural support.
“When you discover a wasp’s nest, take the appropriate action to remove them as you do not want the insects to continue wreaking havoc on your property, destroying wood and weakening your home’s structure little by little,” he says.
Wasps can also pose a serious threat to humans. Not only are their stings painful, but they can also be life threatening for those with allergies to stinging insects. In fact, the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology reports that there are an average of 72 deaths per year from insect stings.
Common Types of Wasps
The best way to get rid of wasps is to know your enemy as well as possible. When you know which species you’re dealing with, you can maximize your odds of victory.
| Type of Wasp | Description | Nest |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow jacket (Vespula spp.)  | Alternating black-and-yellow pattern that runs the length of their bodies, which typically measure about ½ inch long. | Spherical nests built from paper-like material can reach the size of a basketball. Yellow jackets nest in shrubs, high in trees and near the ground in logs, or even underground. |
| European hornet (Vespa crabro)  | ¾-inch long. Brown with yellow stripes on the abdomen and a light-colored face. | Usually build their paper nests in tree hollows, attics, wall voids, and other sheltered areas. In general, hornets typically build their nests, which can reach up to 24 inches in length, in elevated places, such as trees and overhangs on buildings. |
| Mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium)  | Slender, delicate-looking bodies that are usually black with light-colored markings and a metallic sheen. Daubers are ¾-inch to 1-inch long. | Mud daubers do not live in colonies. Instead, the Females typically build a nest of small 1-inch-long tubes from mud. Their nests can usually be found under roof eaves or on porch ceilings, or in garages, sheds, barns, or even inside homes. |
| Paper wasp (Polistes spp.)  | Mostly dark brown in color with yellow and sometimes red markings. They can look very similar to yellow jackets, although paper wasps are much thinner around the “waist” and have orange-tipped antennae. | Made of a paper-like material built from wood fiber gathered from plants, paper wasp nests have a bulbous shape that resembles a paper lantern, and the honeycomb structure of the nest is often visible. They are typically found hanging from the branches of trees or shrubs, but you can also find them attached to door frames, deck joists, eaves, and porch ceilings. |
How to Know if You Have a Wasp Infestation
You can determine whether wasps have set up shop on your property by looking for a few telltale signs.
- Increase in wasp activity: Seeing the occasional wasp here and there may be no cause for alarm, but if you see a lot of wasps flying around your home, chances are they have established a nest somewhere.
- Wood damage: Wasps create their nests by chewing up wood to create pulp. If you noticed small holes on exterior parts of your home, it could be wasps.
- Nests: Wasps nests are made of either mud or particles of wood. Some wasp nests look like a large ball of paper about the size of a basketball. Wasp nests made from mud have a vase-like shape and are typically stuck in a niche, such as the corner of the ceiling on a covered porch.
- Buzzing noise: Wasps that are building a nest make a telltale buzzing noise. If you hear this noise, try to locate its source to determine if a nest is nearby.
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How to Get Rid of Wasps
As you get ready to do battle with these winged invaders, thorough preparation and a commitment to fast and decisive action should be among your top objectives. Wasps, unlike bees, do not lose their stinger when they sting, which means they can sting repeatedly. Wear protective gear, dressing in layers of clothing made of tightly woven fabric. Put on long pants, a long-sleeved shirt under a thick jacket, gloves, socks and shoes, and a hat paired with a bandana to cover your face.
Find the wasp nest. You can simply walk around your property, checking all those snug, out-of-the-way hiding places that wasps are known to haunt—roof eaves and rafters, wall cavities, crawl spaces, railings, fence posts, and tree branches. Or you can observe the wasps flying around your yard. Their flight patterns should show them going to and from one location. Tail the wasps until they lead you back to their nest.
Choose your wasp removal battle plan.
Before you do battle, consider timing. It’s best to approach the nest at night or early in the morning when wasps are slower to react. “The cooler temperatures during the evening and early morning make the wasps slow and docile,” Smith says. Also, most of the hive will be in the nest during these times, allowing you to take out all of them at once.
The time of year is just as important as the time of day. Wasps pick a spot for their nest in early spring, then begin to expand it. By August, a nest can reach its peak size, housing up to 2,000 wasps. That’s a lot of stingers. With this in mind, it’s best to pay attention to wasp activity around your home in early spring. Nip the problem in the bud by eliminating recently established nests before they have a chance to become a buzzing wasp metropolis.
Whichever method you choose, hit the entrance of the nest and work your way out from there, covering the entire thing if there’s time. Don’t be shy with your attack. Douse the entire nest with whatever substance you’re using to kill the wasps. Your assault should last no longer than 15 seconds, after which you should make your escape. When it comes to escape, plan in advance a route that enables a retreat to a safe area once any surviving wasps emerge from the nest looking for their attacker. Make sure there are no garden tools, lawn furniture, or toys in the way that might trip you as you make your escape.
Wasp-removal methods to consider:
Set up wasp traps.
You can purchase commercial wasp traps online or at home improvement stores. Or you can make your own. Cut off the top of a large plastic soda bottle at the “shoulders.” Punch holes in the soda bottle near the top and add string or wire for hanging the trap. In the bottle, add 1 part fruit juice, 10 parts water, 1 teaspoon of yeast, several drops of liquid detergent and a piece of ripe fruit or fruit jam. Add a teaspoon or so of vinegar to dissuade honeybees. Invert the piece of the bottle you cut off and set it into the top of your trap. Place the trap where you’ve seen wasp activity.
Use a commercial wasp spray.
“One really good way to get rid of wasps and their nests is to use a wasp spray that can shoot far,” says Smith. The best wasp sprays unleash powerful wasp-killing pyrethroids and pyrethrins from a relatively safe distance of up to 27 feet away. These sprays work on contact, instantly killing the wasps with powerful neurotoxins. Sprays are especially useful when you’re dealing with nests that are under eaves, in tree branches, on porch ceilings, or in other hard-to-reach places where pouring boiling or soapy water just isn’t feasible. Try to kill as many wasps as possible in the first strike to eliminate, or at least weaken, a counterattack. If working at night, don’t use a standard flashlight, which will alert the wasps to your presence. Instead, use an amber-colored light.
Pour boiling water.
If you’d like to know how to get rid of wasps naturally, start with boiling water. Pouring a bucket of boiling water onto the wasp nest accomplishes two things: It immediately kills scores of wasps, and it ruins their nest. It may, however, take a few bucketfuls to destroy the nest and completely detach it from its hanging spot. Meanwhile, you’re likely to have upset dozens of stinging wasps. The wise course is to stage your boiling-water attacks several hours (or even a full day) apart. Consider adding dish detergent to the boiling water; it slows the wasps down a bit, giving you more time to exit the scene.
Spray a soap and water mixture.
In a spray bottle nearly filled with water, add 2 tablespoons of dish soap. Thoroughly saturate the wasp nest with this mixture, as quickly as possible, and then make a hasty exit. You may need to repeat the process a day later, after the wasps have settled down from the first attack.
Use essential oils.
Wasps are repelled by several natural scents, including peppermint, citrus, cloves, and lemongrass. Fill a spray bottle with water and then add 10-15 drops of essential oil; spray your mixture in areas where you’ve seen wasps. You can also use candles or sachets scented with wasp-repelling essential oils to keep the stingers at bay. This method will not kill the wasps, but will deter them from entering a particular area.
Call a pest control company.
If you’ve tried the above methods and the wasps persist, it might be time to call in the pros. Large nests—bigger than a grapefruit—are worthy of immediate professional attention. And if family members, particularly children, are a risk of being injured by any number of wasps, it makes sense to seek help. “If you have allergies, you should definitely call in the pros,” says Kyle Morgan, founder of Care Pest Pros in Spicewood, Texas. “We’re cheaper than a hospital visit.” One of the best pest control companies near you (such as Orkin or Terminix) can help.
How to Prevent Wasp Infestations
It’s much easier to spend a little time to prevent a wasp infestation than it is to deal with the time and expense of getting rid of one. Along with eliminating those things that attract wasps to your yard (see above), there are other measure you can take to prevent wasp infestations:
- Seal entryways: Use silicone caulk and expanding foam to seal any gaps or cracks that can serve as entry points into your home. These include gaps around door and window frames and in siding and soffits.
- Plant wasp-repelling plants: Along with moving flowers away from living areas, Smith suggests working wasp-repelling plants into your landscaping. “If you plant plants that they don’t like, such as mint, basil, or rosemary, it will cut down on the frequency of wasps visiting your property,” he says.
- Nip new nests in the bud: Keeping vigilant and eliminating nests before they become established is key, Smith says. “If you treat and take down any nest that pops up quickly, it will cut down on the pheromones that they release, which attract other wasps.”
FAQs
Although there are a number of miscellaneous uses for dryer sheets, repelling wasps isn’t one of them. There is no proof that dryer sheets keep wasps away.
Wasps have a strong sense of smell, which allows them to locate food. Wasps do hate certain scents, including peppermint, lemongrass, vinegar, bay leaves, scented herbs, and essential oils.
When considering how to kill wasps, don’t discount chemical sprays. Wasp sprays contain powerful pyrethroids and pyrethrins that will paralyze a wasp’s central nervous system on contact, causing it to suffocate and die.
