Help! Major Wasp Problem

Hello everyone, we seriously need help if anyone has an idea as to how we can solve this problem.

We live in the countryside / mountain area and since the weather has got very hot we have been plagued by wasps outside the house.  We cannot sit outside because it is like being in the middle of a swarm on our patio, and you are running a gauntlet every time you go outside.  We also have a dip pool which is currently reduntant because there are THOUSANDS (no exaggeration) of dead wasps in there.  I cannot find a nest anywhere so does anyone have any ideas as to how I could get them away from the front area of the house?  Anthing I could put out there to attract and kill them or drive them away?

It really is starting to become a problem.

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Hi there!

This is possibly a suggestion on too small a scale, but worth a try. We used to spend our holidays camping and to keep the wasps away I would make some home made wasp traps. You need several empty plastic drink bottles - about the 2 litre size. Rinse them out and throw away the lid. Cut each bottle in two, cutting around the bottle, slightly above half way up. Put something sweet into the bottom half, a spoon of jam just covered with water, or some sweet fizzy drink and the invert the top portion of the bottle so that it fits inside and the neck of the bottle becomes a funnel, pointing down towards the sweet lure. The wasps go down the funnel to investigate the sweet stuff in the bottom, BUT!! They are unable to take off vertically, so they cant get out. Just make sure that the bottom of the 'funnel' is a fair way up from the sweet trap.

When you have made several of these you need to position them around. Hopefully the wasps will be more interested in the traps than you. You can throw them away and make new ones from time to time.

They land on the swimming pool to drink, and then get too wet and heavy to be able to take off, which is why there are so many dead ones in the pool.

I hope you can understand my 'Blue Peter' description? I made a drawing in 'Word' and tried to copy and paste it here, but it didnt work! Hah! computers! So great in many ways, but often huge time wasters!

Good luck with the fight against the wasps. Dont, what ever you do, wave your arms around to get them away. That will make them sting. Stay calm. They are really not interested in us. Unlike the flying biting things. Now where did I put my mosiguard?........

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i looked at something called the waspinator which you can look up on google its basically a mimic of a wasps nest so in theory the wasps think there is a rival nest in the area and avoid the general proximity.i made my own out of a long brown paper bag which came with plain crisps in them from the local mercadonna.i put a plastic food bag inside which i inflated so the brown paper bag would keep its shape and a small weight to stop it blowing around.i have one tied on the pool ladders which attracted wasps but we get none now and another on the washing line.i have had them up several days now and there is a definate improvement however i think they are genrally avoiding an area of around five or six feet away from the mock nests so a few more will go up soon.hope this helps.if you try this would you please post back with results in case you can add any helpful information.

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WASPINATOR.. GOOD IF IT WORKS !!   Click blue link.

We had a few wasps inside our casa recently even though no nests visible. Can't imagine Damok's hassles with them, how awful.

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Thanks for the hints!! I'm going to try both of them tomorrow hopefully.

I noticed today that the wasps seem to go for a siesta between about 2 and 5 in the afternoon. Typical Spanish!!!!  Not even the wasps are out and about in the afternoon.

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Just a couple of pics to show how bad the situation is.  The areas in the pictures are a fraction of the pool but the whole pool is covered like this - and I only cleaned it completely last night!!!!  Every morning we get up to this and we cant see any solution.

I have tried the 'design a nest' with the brown paper bag but it has had no effect at all ( I have it hung right next to the pool ) and I bought a wasp trap which is basically designed the same as the 'bottle' suggestion which does catch them but not in the numbers I need it to.

Any more ideas anyone?  We are practically housebound during the day and I really feel sorry for the dogs as I'm keeping them inside as well because they are starting to become bothered with them as well.



This message was last edited by damok666 on 7/11/2008.

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i think its time to call in the professionals......

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Having Googled for help I found this blog. It doesn't help you but boy, is it funny reading about tackling their wasp nest.

http://anthonypeters.blog.co.uk/2006/09/29/

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Hi we had a similar problem with our pool, however by positioning the jets so the jets actually push the water out of the pool creating like a mini water fall effect and running the pump every few hours through the day for about an hour at a time we seem to now have far less of a problem, you will ba amazed how many you will collect in the skimmer basket.  We also found the blighters were making nests under the overhang of tiles on the top of the garden walls and around the roof of the house , also inside building blocks, so every morning before the sun comes up I now check for new nests and give a good spray with a good quality fly/wasp spray, over the past month we have seen a good reduction in wasps in the pool.  Hope this is of some help.    Chingo

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Hi Chingo, thanks for your help but all we have is a dip pool (think paddling pool for adults - about 2 feet deep and 12 feet across) so the filter is just 2 tubes which attach to the sides of the pool.

Does anyone know if wasps take the weekend off by any chance?  The was a huge reduction in the amount of dead ones in there today and generally around the pool there was very few all day.  I may not have given the fake nest enough time to do its job but hopefully its starting to kick in now (keep your fingers crossed for me).

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i wonder if there is a large reduction because a lot of them have drowned lol maybe they were depressed...any how is now you watch any wasps that fly in a straight line you might discover a nest and when the sun is down and they are home spray them .they tend to go for any dark shaded hole away from the blazing sun and build quite small nest in those circumstances.

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We had a similar problem , hundreds every day in the pool. There didn´t seem to be one big nest but the wasps were all over the roof of our house going under the tiles in lots of places. Asked in the local cooperativa....was given a 40g sachet of IMIDAD WP.

Cost 2 euros. This pack is enough for probably 3 sessions so split the powder into 3 lots , mixed one lot with 5 litres of water in my spray pack. Waited until dusk ( less wasp activity ) then sprayed the whole roof . Tried to get into the spaces between tiles but more of a general soaking. Very little wasp activity while spraying. Next day there were still some wasps about but they seemed to be young ones ,( maybe just hatched ) but no where near as many. By day 3 , very few wasps around the pool, perhaps 8 -10 in a day. The powder seems to be a stronger version of the stuff for spraying on fruit trees , which is used every 21 days so I may need to repeat as neccessary but that´s a small price.

 

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Don't know about Spanish wasps, but have had success with French versions of bees, wasps and hornets (large waps but not identified).

In each case I have used an aqua vac vacuum cleaner but it wouldn't be easy on a roof.

Regards

Norman

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 Hi

I wondered if you had any success with any of the suggestions?  We don't have a problem with the wasps in our pool - we get the usual amount going in for a drink and then drowning - yippee, but our problem is when we have a BBQ. We try and wait until later in the evening, but get plagued by them. It's a real nuisance.  I contacted a company in the UK who had a trap called 'Waspbane', but they kindly wrote and said that it wouldn't work in Spain as the wasps are of a different species.

Any suggestions?

 

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