Not-A-Bee Traps

A while back I mentioned that I'm alarmed by the number of people who classify anything that buzzes, is black and yellow and vaguely striped, and is hanging around the yard as a "bee". And that they furthermore seem to hate bees with such a passion that they swat, poison, trap, stomp, squash, maim, fold, spindle and mutilate indiscriminately. Eventually I'll get around to posting a quick primer on What Is A Real Bee and Why Do We Like (and NEED) Bees? But right now, I'd like to address a Not-Bee critter that makes itself annoying around summer picnics and backyard BBQ's.

I'm talking about the Yellow Jacket, or hornets, or wasps. Around here, it's mostly yellow jackets. These guys:

Not A Bee, kids. Yellowjacket. Genus Vespula or Dolichovespula (bees are Apis). These are the most common pests at picnics, because about the time we want to be out frolicking in the late summer heat, their tastes in foods switch over from flowers, fruits, and sap to ripe and fermenting fruits and foods high in sugar like sodas. They also require meat to chew up and feed to their larvae, hence their overt interest in your tasty hotdog. Adding further to their undesirability as a picnic companion, they are much more aggressive than bees, and can sting more than once with no problem. They can also bite. Neato!

So what to do about them pestering you at a picnic? Sprays are a bad idea in general but particularly around food, and I hope I don't have to tell anyone why. Citronella candles can be of some help, but not much in my experience. You can purchase nifty wasp traps, but they're made of plastic, are generally not reusable, and junk up the landfills, plus they're expensive and usually have a chemical lure as part of the trap. You can purchase beautiful reusable glass wasp traps without the chemicals or the plastic, but they get expensive and are better for use on a backyard table than hauled along camping or to a picnic. And realistically, what happens when you're already camping or at a picnic, and the yellowjackets invade? No access to a store, no traps with you, what now? Build your own trap!

I once went camping with some friends, a good half hour from the nearest small town, and we had exactly this sort of thing happen. Lots of yellowjackets trying to ruin our good time. So while some of our companions headed into town to purchase traps, I showed the 9 year old in our group how to make our own.

YOU WILL NEED:

* An empty 1 or 2 liter plastic bottle with a narrow mouth. Pop bottles are ideal, but other kinds will work. (Lemon juice bottles and Bailey's Irish Creme come to mind.)

* Bait. Fish is ideal because it smells strongly. Hot dog bits, canned cat food, slices of beef, raw meat, or even regular soda will work if it's all you have. Meat is better, because beneficial bees have no interest in it, while the pesky yellowjackets love it.

* A knife or a pair of scissors

Remove and discard the cap. Find the part of the bottle where the sloping top turns into straight sides. Cut all the way around the bottle at this point, and remove the tapered top from the straight-sided bottom.

Place your bait in the bottom of the trap. Bonus points if it reeks. Add a little water to the bottom, but don't completely submerge the bait.

Invert the sloped top into the main body of the container. If the sloped top is too large to fit well or hangs too deeply, you can trim some off of it. You will now have a container with what amounts to a funnel jammed in the top.

Place on the outskirts of where you're eating or sitting, preferably in the sun and preferably somewhere humans can see it but won't disturb it. (Don't put it in the grass where someone is going to stomp on it and release the honked-off yellowjackets.)

To reuse or discard, carefully pick up the trap and add water to be sure all the yellowjackets are dead. Remove the funnel top, dig a hole somewhere out of the way and discard the contents in the hole and cover it. You could also chuck the contents in the trash or pour it down the garbage disposal, I suppose. Point is, don't put dead yellowjackets somewhere people will step on them, and don't pour stinky bait somewhere people have to smell it. It's all organic and natural, though, so burying it for the wildlife to find won't hurt anything. Recycle the plastic bottle when you're all done.

Our homemade one beat the storebought one hands down. We caught dozens of them in a couple of little 1 liter traps, using only smoked salmon skin as bait. The yellowjackets smell the bait, fly in, eat a little, and then can't find the hole to get out because it's in the center of the funnel bit, and they can't get to it easily. The heat from the sun eventually kills them, or they fall in the water and drown.

By comparison, the storebought trap actually failed to trap anything until I examined the trap and figured out that the ventilation holes were so large the yellowjackets could crawl back out. With some electrical tape out of my husband's truck, I plugged the holes halfway, which rendered the trap actually operable. However, its chemical bait still only attracted a fraction of the yellowjackets that the homemade one did, and I didn't have to spend a dime or leave the campground!