October 02nd, 2018

What's all this about?  In a word? Wasps.  Lots of them. 

Way back in, I believe, April, I had written about this bizarre wasp issue that was on a constant repeat here.  Just outside of our backdoor, which we honestly don't use all that often anyway, there was a wasp nest.  We would wait for a cool evening and when they were a little less active, knock down the nest and spray the bejeebers out of both the nest and the area they had selected to build it.  And it would work.  For a few weeks.  And then the winged fiends would return to rebuild in EXACTLY the same spot. Over and Over and Over!  Sigh. 

So we kept doing the same thing to rid ourselves of them.  And it kept not working.  I honestly don't need them to be killed or even wounded.  I just need them relocated. Choose  a nice tree or even a fence post, I don't care. " Go on and live your little wasp-lives elsewhere", I explained to them in exasperation, "I just don't want to walk into a swarm of wasps every time I dare step a pinky toe out our backdoor!"  I mean come on!  This is our yard, not their yard.   I'm all for sharing.  For live and let live, but geez.  Perhaps if they were kicking in on the mortgage I'd cut them some slack but since they aren't, they are in fact, moochers! So it's time to be evicted.

The spray apparently didn't do much to deter them. In fact, I think these particular wasps like it.  In fact I suspect that, for them, it's like ice cream for dessert. Or perhaps it's like a vitamin laden juice and instead of repelling them, we are making them stronger!  And still we kept doing the same thing. (Probably because we didn't know what else to do!)  But you know what they say about a person who continues to do the same thing but expects a different outcome, right? 

So, since we probably aren't crazy, on we moved to another idea.  Friends of ours back in Colorado, had been plagued by the same issue.  They recommended the above yellow jacket trap.  It worked great for them.  Awesome!  Off we went to our local Lowe's to find some.  Ratz. None.  Okay, we traveled a little farther down the road to Home Depot.  They had one.  One!  Okay, one is better than none. We will buy that one.  It was also strongly recommended that we wear gloves while "arming' the trap as it has a wasp/bee attractant in it and you absolutely do NOT want that on your hands. RIGHT you are!  So,  we purchased the trap, the gloves and zipties to attach it to whatever it ends up being attached to outside.

The directions say to hang it 20 feet from the nest. Trying to determine where that might be,   I walked around the entirety of the house, looking up and found, to my dismay, at least 5 different nests. Great. Now their friends and family are moving in too. 

Most of the nests were very cleverly hidden behind drains, up under the hurricane curtain (which was permanently afixed to the house by the previous owner), behind shutters and so forth.  Sneaky little barstids.  In fact, one of the nests I found by accident while cleaning windows.  As I began working on that particular window, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere,  I had several wasps buzzing around me, not angry yet really, more in curiosity.  I held absolutely still while trying to remember what to do when faced with multiple flying stinging things.  I could remember what to do if attacked by bears or sharks but for the life of me, went absolutely blank about wasps.  After a few moments of flying ever slower around me, several of them landed....IN MY HAIR!  I held my breath and tried to not scream, run or shake which I SO wanted to do. But I equally didn't want to be stung and so I waited. 

After what felt like an eternity, they flew away.  I'm sure it was seconds but they were the longest seconds in the history of mankind. Or womankind. Or waspkind.  Any kind.  Long seconds were had regardless.  As soon as I could, I escaped back into the safety of the house, and no more windows were cleaned that day.  Whew!  Later that  night, I went out and found then knocked that particular nest down.  Retribution was mine!

Tim ultimately hung the trap about half way between two of the most problematic areas.

As of this writing,  it has trapped nary a wasp.  Not a single one.  Dang.  Either our wasps are very very smart and refuse to be outwitted by a wasptrap.  OR they are very very stupid and cannot figure out how to get inside to the attractant.  Or because these are vitamin charged super wasps, they are strong enough resist the attraction or the attractant?  Or even stronger and scarier, they have figured out a way to get inside to the yummy ice cream and then back out?  Or perhaps they just aren't attracted to the attractant?

I mean, there are people who don't like pizza (which absolutely baffles me) so I suppose it's possible that there are wasps that don't like whatever fragrance other wasps like. Maybe?

Regardless, hope springs eternal that this will work. Something has to be done.  If you have any ideas, I would love to hear them!