There is a colony of ground wasps twenty feet from the hives. What would you do? Kill them or just set traps?
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There is a colony of ground wasps twenty feet from the hives. What would you do? Kill them or just set traps?
By ground wasps do you mean yellow jackets. Pour gas in their hole at night and plug the whole with something.
If your hive is not weak they can take care of themselves.
Yellow Jackets don't forage near their nest. So ironically, that might be the safest spot for your hive. They kinda shoot out and forage further away.
Wait for frost. Not too long in NH
If you find you need to kill a nest for some reason pouring boiling hot water in the nest hole in the evening will generally work.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. All good ideas except for pouring gasoline down the hole, I personally wouldn't do this because its not environmentally friendly, but thanks for answering anyway.
My beekeeping friend's husband set up a hose in the hole and let-er-rip. He let the water run for quite some time, and it actually worked. Handy technique.
Did you know that bamboo attracts wasps? I didn't when I placed my log hive in front of it. Apparently, the wasps gather fiber for their nests. I only started noticing this in late September and October. I shot some pictures and video here...
http://solarbeez.com/2012/11/04/bamboo-attracts-wasps/
Gasoline burns off pretty quick with little residue now that it contains mostly environmentally friendly Ethanol....
And the paper nests burn fast too.