Wasps, including hornets, are beneficial insects. They consume many caterpillars and other insects and feed many of them to their larvae. They also pollinate many flowers. Unfortunately, they also sting, which makes them dangerous around your Honolulu yard or house.
Description Of Honolulu’s Wasps
While Honolulu has many species of wasps, there are three that cause the most trouble:
- Paper Wasps: There are several species of paper wasps in Hawaii. These include the common paper wasp (Polistes exclamans exclamans (Viereck),) Golden paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus aurifer Saussure), Macao paper wasp (Polistes macaensis (Fabricius)), and Redbrown paper wasp (Polistes olivaceus (De Geer)). All of these insects are reddish-brown with yellow markings. They build nests made of chewed wood and saliva. The nests hang from a single stalk and are a single row of cells. They will vigorously defend their nests and can sting over and over again. Each nest has less than 200 adults, and the nest usually dies out in 6-7 months, when the queen’s egg-laying ability is exhausted.
- Yellow Jackets: The western yellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica) is black with yellow legs, antenna, and yellow markings on the body. These wasps are very belligerent and do not hesitate to sting anything they feel is threatening their nest over and over again until it retreats. Yellowjackets like to nest in the ground. This makes it hard to know they are there until something provokes them. Often, that something is a lawnmower going over the entrance to their nest. While the nest dies each winter on the mainland, the temperate climate here allows the nest to grow year after year, and it may contain 500,000 adults.
- Bald-faced Hornet: (Dolichovespula maculata) is a type of wasp. It is black with white markings. It builds a nest attached to eaves, trees, attics, and other sheltered areas. The nest is enclosed by a paper cover with a single exit hole. The hornets will vigorously defend their nest. This can be very dangerous. Each nest contains 100-400 adults.
Landscaping Tips To Deter Wasps
Some landscapes attract wasps and some that repel them. Listed below are some ways to repel wasps using only organic products:
- Plant things that have a strong smell, such as spearmint, wintergreen, sage, rosemary, and thyme, around your landscape and especially around your home.
- Wasps eat nectar. If you have many nectar plants to attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, you may be attracting wasps, too.
- Pick all fallen fruit in your yard. When the fruit goes bad, wasps can reach the sugars inside the fruit.
Other Tips To Deter Wasps
There are other things you can do not to attract wasps. Here are three things to try:
- Put trash in a garbage can with a tightly fitting lid so wasps cannot get in it.
- Do not leave soda cans or food in the yard, such as after a picnic. It will attract wasps, especially in late summer and early fall.
- Cover food with towels or a tablecloth until it is time to eat it. Cover it up again after the meal is done.
Get Professional Help
Removing a wasp nest can be dangerous. People die from wasp stings. Get professional help with Able Pest Management. When you call for our home pest control services, we will give you an estimate to eliminate your wasps. We then schedule an inspection and initial treatment. When our technician arrives, he will do a thorough inspection inside and out. Our technician will put on a bee suit and treat the wasps in your house and the yard. We will then do follow-up visits to renew the treatment we have done outside. Call Able Pest Management today and get rid of the wasps before they hurt your family and pets.
