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- Jun 1, 2017
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Any ideas about how to keep these insects from making their nests in the tortoise cave? I burned them out of my Russian tortoise, Juliet’s, cave and she is most anxious to reclame her space. So are the wasps!
Paper wasps, and other nest building stinging insects
- Thread starter ColumbiaJane
- Start date
Really? Here the paper wasps only build nests up high here in my neck o the woods. I have them under the eaves of my house, in the doorway to my tortoise sheds, but have never found them actually inside the sheds or night houses. I have some thread waist wasps that build mud nests, but they don't go inside the tortoise places either. Because they're up high, I can safely spray them with Raid wasp killer.
You will have to physically remove them....not fun but necessary...and continue to do so each and every day until they understand the place they want to hide is not going to happen....
I have the same problem with the wasps building in my workshop. There are some spots I don't like using the Raid spray so what I did was to remove the nest they are building, they will keep coming back and try to rebuild on the same spot so I sprayed the Raid on a rag and dabbed it on the spot they want to build on. They took the hint pretty fast and moved on.
A neighbor of mine takes a small paper bag and fills it with something fluffy to make it resemble a nest. Hangs it on a short cord in a covered area like they like (her porch). She says wasps think other wasps have already taken that territory, so they don't linger.
The wasps don't move when it's cold out. Early in the morning, go to the nest and you'll find all the sleeping wasps as easy, unmoving targets.
They can also be smoked out. I saw a vid of some African guy burning a torch made of brush around some nests in trees, whereupon he would pluck the larvae out of the hexagons and eat them.
Might make good pet food if you don't fancy larvae.
Might make good pet food if you don't fancy larvae.
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Loni
Member
There are wasp traps that you can get at places like Home Depot that you hang slightly away from the place you want free of wasps. I used one that is basically a plastic bag you hang in a tree. You add water to what ever is already in it and it draws them in and kills them. One bags literally killed hundreds of wasps in short order and solved my wasp problem.
Are you sure they are wasps?
I don't know if you can access this from the US
https://friendsoftheearth.uk/bee-count has a good identification guide.
I don't know if you can access this from the US
https://friendsoftheearth.uk/bee-count has a good identification guide.
Loni
Member
Great link and accessible from Canada. Ours were yellow jacket wasps and the trap ONLY trapped the wasps. Very into protecting the bees!
Good to hear - I don't even like to kill wasps or any pollinators but if they are a danger then I suppose people have to do what they can.
Loni
Member
Yellow jackets are not pollinators as far as I know. They kill bees and other wasps and eat carrion.
