Wasps: how get rid of these sugar-addicted, uninvited guests
Wasps seem like shameless baddies at this time of year – especially this summer, which has apparently been one of the worst we've seen in years due to the hot weather. Boo, hiss. But as annoying as they are, we shouldn’t overlook what wasps have been up to when laying low. They are, in fact, brilliantly beneficial insects, and have been working away diligently on our behalf during the summer.
The queen starts her nest in spring (right), and starts producing worker wasps that go out to scour the garden for aphids and caterpillars to feed to the nest’s young. When they return with these delicacies, the queen rewards the workers with a sweet treat, and off they go again.
Later in the summer, the queen stops producing young and so the sweet treats dry up, but with the craving still strong the now-redundant workers start to cause trouble around our cans of cola and cream teas. When they find them, they pop back to the nest to tell their fellow delinquents, and so we get swarmed, pestered and stung.
If you have a nest in your garden, try to put up with it, and allow it to complete its life cycle. The end is so close, and wasps are so helpful most of the year. The trick to coping with them at this time is to place a sweet lure away from eating areas.
WaspBane (waspbane.com) is particularly good as it traps and kills the scouting wasps very effectively, so none return to alert the rest of the nest to the presence of a sugar source – and hence you are less likely to be troubled by a mass visitation.
Wasps are territorial and will rarely nest near other nests. You can dissuade next year’s queens from making trouble in your garden by hanging up an imitation nest, such as the Waspinator, to fool them into staying away (waspinator.co.uk).
