All You Need to Know About Yellow Jackets
Summer is when people who spend time outdoors are most likely to encounter yellowjacket, the unwanted summer wasp frequently found at picnics, cookouts, potlucks, and parties. If you’re a homeowner, it is essential to know as much as you can about yellow jackets. Knowing about these insects can help you avoid issues as the summer progresses.
Where Do Yellow Jackets Live?
Yellow jackets are located all over the USA in settings that range from metropolitan to rural. Yellow jackets live in voids where they construct their paper nests and are frequently found nesting in old burrows or inside hollow areas of logs in “nature”. They additionally construct their nests in the voids in our homes, like in between the inner and external walls of our houses. In cooler climates the workers, sterile females, live one season and die at the end of the season from the cold. The new reproductive queens survive the winter months since they find a protected atmosphere where they throughout winter and survive the cold.
Early in their season generally their houses are tough to find yet as numbers increase so does activity and in the last fifty percent of their season the nest locations are easily determined. Home owners who believe they have a yellow jacket nest on their property may be able to find the nest by following a yellow jacket or by looking for a location where yellow jackets appear to emerge from the ground or some other void.
What Do Yellow Jackets Like to Eat?
Yellow jackets have a diverse diet. The fully grown yellow jackets are looking mainly for carbohydrates in a liquid or semi liquid state. The developing young need lots of protein, so insect hunting provides that protein resource for the young. When living around human populations, yellow jackets will eat human foods when they can find it. Fruit, tree sap, nectar, and trash are all a source of food for yellow jackets.
What Do Yellow Jackets Resemble?
Yellow jackets are generally easily identifiable by their rich yellow and black coloring. They have long wings and are far thinner and much less hairy than bumble bees. In length, yellow jackets are in between 10 and 16 millimeters. You can find them crawling on leftover foods, flying through the yard, and crawling over plants.
Can Yellow Jackets Be Avoided?
Yellow jackets can be hard to anticipate. They don’t use the same nest from one season to another, so you can’t avoid them by dealing with the same openings and hiding places every year. You can make your home a much less desirable area for yellow jackets to live or forage for resources.
For instance, property owners that take measures to cover their trash, avoid leaving food out on the patio, and clean their messes after picnics and parties may be less likely to entice yellow jackets. Remember to always shut the trash lid all the way when discarding trash, as a partly cracked lid can be a point of entry for a yellow jacket.
Since they make a paper nest untreated timber can attract yellow jackets, so the all-natural looking wood deck may need to have a layer of polyurethane to prevent yellow jackets and other paper wasps from being drawn to the location.
Denying easy access to gaps also can help prevent a yellow jacket problem before it starts, caulking in between the window framework and the brick walls of a house, as an example, will protect against yellow jackets from using the place as a nesting site.
Carrying out standard home maintenance is also important. Yellow jackets like to nest in old decomposing timber, hollow tubes like open chain-link fence posts, and in gaps in the earth. Conceal gaps and remove rotten logs or tree stumps to help stop yellow jackets from finding a suitable place to nest on your property.
Working with a pest control business can help. Your pest control company can provide recommendations for avoiding, finding, and eliminating yellow jacket resources.
Are Yellow Jackets Aggressive?
Yes, yellow jackets are typically aggressive. Most yellow jackets sting people as a method of protecting their colony, and they are known to follow people that they want to sting. They can sting quickly and repeatedly without their stinger becoming lodged in the body of the individual that is being stung. Stings from yellow jackets are a common problem in summer and only become a lot more common as the summer progresses.
Individuals can prevent stings from yellow jackets by staying away from these pests. If you encounter a yellow jacket, avoid contact. Do not whack or step on a yellow jacket. Retreat from the pest gradually without provoking it.
Exactly How Can You Relieve a Sting From a Yellow Jacket?
If you are stung by a yellow jacket, wash the sting and after that apply ice. If you have an antihistamine, take it to reduce swelling.
Call emergency services if you start to experience difficulty breathing or if your tongue or throat begins to swell. If you have an allergy to yellow jacket stings, you may need to have an antihistamine auto injector accessible. Talk to your physician to learn what you need to do to protect yourself from yellow jacket stings.
What Should You Do With Respect To a Yellow Jacket Nest?
If you have a yellow jacket nest on your property, contact a pest control company to get assistance. Working with an expert to eliminate the nest can help make sure that it is done safely and effectively.
More Hornet & Wasp Pest Control Info
