# Wasps nest in the bee yard.



## HoneyintheRox (Apr 4, 2012)

I just noticed wasps building a nest in the doorway to my bee yard (which is an urban roof). It's small, but coming along nicely, if you're into that sort of thing. How do I get the wasps to move along without hurting my bees? I obviously don't want to spray insecticide 6 feet from my hive. Ugh. Help?


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

If they're wasps I wouldn't worry about them. There are thousands of wasps around in one of my yards. they don't bother the bees or me. Now if they're hornets or yellow jackets, that's a different story. Before there were pressurized cans of insecticide, my father would deal with a hornet nest by waiting until dusk, light a roll of newspaper and hold it under the nest, hornets would fly out and the fire would burn their wings off. Worked pretty well, but he would get the occasional sting.


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## Erik the Red (May 27, 2010)

A few options... #4 is my personal recommendation. 

1. Throw rocks at it until they leave. haha- just kidding. 
2. Just destroy the nest (i.e. smash it). Might tick off some wasps, though. 
3. Plastic garbage bag around it, break the little stem that's holding it, & remove to dumpster You can kill or free release somewhere else, if you choose. Just don't leave them alive and mad in a bag for the garbage man to tear it open and get stung. 
4. WD-40 deterred some wasps from continuing to build a nest near my garage. Spray down the nest; they'll find somewhere else that's less lubricated. I wouldn't think that it'd hurt your bees unless the wind actually would blow it into the hives.


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## BeeTech (Mar 19, 2012)

wait untill dark when the wasps are all back in their hive. Scrape it down with a putty kinfe (wasps won't fly at night either, just don't let them crawl on you). Then step on it.


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## HoneyintheRox (Apr 4, 2012)

Wish I'd seen these earlier! I just knocked it down with a broom handle after I was done out there this morning and slammed the door. I won't be able to go back out there until Saturday, so hopefully they'll have cleared out by then.


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## reneal (Sep 6, 2006)

Well, I'm also not quite sure what you define as a wasp. Out here we have a couple varieties of yellow jackets, & the short legged ones are just plain mean tempered, they often live in the ground & I give them a couple gallons of boiling water whenever I get the chance. The longer-legged variety builds small nests under the eaves, with open brood "combs", ie when you look at the nest you can see the capped cells, not just a paper nest with a hole in the bottom. These yellowjackets seem really mild-tempered and when I painted my eaves last year a couple of times I found myself painting within a foot of them, but never got stung. However, what I use to get rid of them is a big squirt gun & load it up with extra soapy water. Apparently the soap interferes with their breathing & it kills a fair number, soaks the nest & they do seem to leave. So far my experience is that with a stream of water, they don't realize they're being attacked. Probably squirted a couple hundred nests over the years & never a sting. Your wasps may be different, so use caution if you try this approach.


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