Any tips on keeping carpenter bees and hornets away from my deck and house this summer?
wow, i've been out all day everyday for a week fighting them. I can tell you what I've learned. The male has a white spot on his head, he cant sting and is aggresive, he is the one buzzing you. Does no good to kill him, lol. the female is who you are after. She has no spot on her head, and she stings. They return to the same nesting area year after year. Painting the wood helps sometimes, but not always. They say to put a certain chemical in the holes they make, then plug with cotton. Lots of work. I have tried spraying with flying insect spray , dawn liquid detergent mixture, and a variety of others. This week I bought some raid hornet killer and went to all the holes I could find and sprayed in them. You can hear the bees dying inside, they will climb out. Today I repeated the process. I have gone through six cans so far for my house and barn. Two weeks ago you could not walk in the barn there were so many, today we hardly saw them at all. I have also used my indoor outdoor vaccuum to suck em up. lol. they are horrible. Good luck.
Repellants just Repel and would not Kill wasps. Proper Insecticides specific for Wasps must be used and the Label instructions must be followed.Stinging insects include bees, hornets, and wasps. Chemical Repellents with DEET (N, N-Diethyl- 3-Methylbenzamide) Considered the best defence against biting insects. 3 to 8 hours depending on how much DEET is in the product.Nowadays, pyrethroids, which are synthetic versions of chrysanthemum-derived pyrethrins, are used in many insecticide formulations. For example, the house-brand wasp and hornet killer I used lists two active ingredients: tetramethrin (a pyrethroid ester) and a phenoxybenzyl cyclopropanecarboxylate
Insect repellent work on wasps?
There are many which claim to do the trick, just google "wasp repellent". To be honest, though most of us are afraid of the things, wasps are actually insects that are beneficial. They mostly prey on other insects. As a matter fact, they avoid contact with humans as much as possible. They only become a nuisance if they nest close to homes or near areas where there is high traffic. Or if you don't look before taking a bite of your jam sandwich . . . One of the best ways of preventing disagreeable encounters with wasps is by avoiding them. If you are aware of where they are, it is advisable to stay away from their nests, because wasps can get defensive if their nest is disturbed.
Even wasps are beneficial to your garden. They are predators and will eat other insects that might be munching on your plants. Learn to identify the different types. We had one long-legged type of wasp that I saw catching mosquitoes in the air! He can stay!I agree it is a little scary to have them build nests over your front door, but some social hornets are not aggressive. If the nest is not near your normal traffic patterns, you can let them be.Most of them are aggressive if you disturb the nests. The best defense is to keep an eye on your eaves and remove the nests while they are small.We used a shop vac to vacuum up the wasps as they approached the nest; for some reason this did not disturb the others and we didn't get stung. After a day of this we got most of the wasps, and then we were able to take down the nest without incident, wearing protective clothing, gloves and safety glasses of course. We had a garbage can of water standing by to dunk the nest.The bald-faced hornet is one example of a kind and gentle one that does not need to be "managed" as long as you leave them alone.
I can only assume you are co-mingling honey bees, bumble bees, wasps (yellow jackets, red wasps, etc.) and hornets.Light colors are best. Brightly colored clothing may attract attention, like flowers.If there is a “bee”, control your movements. Slower is better.Avoid powerful scents and sugary drinks outdoors.Slowly move into shaded areas, or into/under a bush or tree.Avoid nests and things they may be interested in or are defending.If you are being inspected, just close your eyes and stay still until they move on.Relax … unless you threaten them, they won’t hurt you. I literally stuck my hand onto a swarming mass of honeybees a couple of days ago. They were warm, buzzy, and many stuck to my hand. They ticked. I shook them off and walked away. No stinging occurred.I have fed an increasingly large group of yellowjackey wasps mead (honey wine) dripping from my finger at a Rennaisance festival. No stings.Quiet your mind and find your Zen place. They have better things to do than look for trouble with you.
Several research studies show that carbon monoxide is not particularly toxic to insects. Stick insects have survived for more than a month in an atmosphere containing more than 80% CO. That being said, EPA has registered ten pyrotechnic carbon monoxide fumigation generators for control of burrowing rodents and ground nesting wasps (yellow jackets, etc.). The so-called “smoke bombs” contain nitrate oxidizers and carbon, which produces large volumes of CO that completely displaces oxygen and at first anesthetizes and eventually suffocates ground nesting wasps. The formulations of at least six of the smoke generating devices also include sulfur, which produces sulfur dioxide in addition to carbon monoxide. These devices are much faster acting and more effective in killing ground nesting wasps. However, these devices are only effective against ground nesting social hymenoptera. They are ineffective against other ground dwelling insects or any above ground wasps, hornets or bees.
Thanks for the A2A, though I am surprised to be asked about something so far from my area of knowledge. Let's see what I can round up...First, reduce mosquitoes in your area, if you can, by emptying out any containers that hold stagnant water - tires, buckets, bird baths and the like. The larva require water and are plainly visible on the surface of it. You can even just strain them off the top, with filter paper, or add any of several types of fish to your pond that eat them like popcorn. Barring those techniques, spray some vegetable oil on the surface of standing water to suffocate the little devils.As for the adults:As other will probably mention, mosquitoes vector in on exhalation, CO2 and a few volatile chemicals in perspiration. (Angry bees, wasps and hornets do too BTW)So, step one - start with a shower and clean clothes, light colored clothes.Some scents put them off, so Step two would be a spritz with a mosquito repellent with Pyrethrin, or better yet, Pyrethroid, the natural or synthetic chrysanthemum extract they dislike so. DEET is also very effective, since it renders them unable to effectively detect your breath and perspiration. That stuff saves lives in the tropics.Step three, for me, back when I was able to do things in my workshop, was to light a mosquito coil. If you are on a patio or other semi-outdoor space and can stand a little smoke, these killer coils will keep the area mostly mosquito free.Step four, for larger areas - pool parties, et cetera - you can rent devices that use a propane burner (to make fake exhalation gas) with a water trap. They can keep a whole yard or garden usable for entertaining.
Are bees, ants, and termites strongly related?
The gangs you have mentioned I would call "social insects" as opposed to those that hatch, develop & go out on their own without a "nest" like fleas, mosquitoes, & flies. While they may stay together for a food supply (maggots live off dead tissue until they progress, then sprout wings & change to those pesky summer insects, the ever present buzzing pest, the fly) . Mosquitoes progress in stagnant water, develop & fly away in search of their favorite food...our blood. These guys don't take food back to the hive like bees & ants will. Bees, ants & termites return to their queen & to help protect the hive if it comes under attack. A fly, flea or mosquito just hits the road & goodbye to the family. While termites do stay with their "mounds" which can grow to look like sand castles, the bees & some ants will fight to the death to protect the queen & their home base. Because of this behavior I would definitely consider them more "human" . Scary thought, isn't it?
At my local association we sit every weekend eating and drinking food near our several hives, and I don't recall ever seeing any bees getting interested. Bees are programmed to be attracted to sugary nectar in flowers. So if you picnic on sugary solutions from brightly coloured saucers, then they might eventually start getting interested. Not in an aggressive way, just in a feeding type of way. But they're not after sandwiches, or even sugary fizzy drinks, because they don't look like flowers. Yellow jackets on the other hand, or wasps as I'm used to calling them, are quickly attracted to food smells and start buzzing round annoyingly. As wasps rob honeybee nests in autumn you might want to set up wasp traps using jam or cider, substances which will attract wasps but not bees. Face the hive entrance away from your picnic area. You could also put up some netting between you and the hive to force the bees to fly up and away from you quickly. You don't want to be picnicking in their flight path.Edit: forgot to say, something to avoid eating during your picnic (as well as honey sandwiches like Matt Leigh points out) is bananas. Bananas smell similar to honey bee alarm pheromone, so could encourage the workers to start stinging.