How To Get Rid Of Hornets Naturally

Because of changes in climate, insects such as wasps are multiplying rapidly, which makes the need to get rid of wasps a more common occurrence.

When there are few (or no) freezes through the winter months, adult insects do not die out. Furthermore, year-round warmth extends the breeding season.

get rid of wasp naturally a close up of a wasp

For these reasons, wasps and other stinging insects are becoming a problem for more people. In this article, we will delve into the topic of wasps and how to live with them, deal with them, and/or how to get rid of wasps naturally. Read on to learn more.

You Can Learn to Coexist with Wasps
10 Ways To Get Rid Of Wasps Naturally
7 Smart Wasp Repellent Recipes & Ideas
2 Effective Ways to Trap Wasps
Wasp Bait Recipes & Ideas
4 Powdered Solutions To Wasp Problem Pest Control
Relocate a Small Wasp Nest Colony
5 Ways To Be Smart & Safe When Dealing with Wasps
The Benefits of Wasps Usually Outweigh the Detriments

You Can Learn to Coexist with Wasps

Even when there are many of them, wasps are not necessarily a threat if you know how to behave around them. Avoid running, screaming, and waving your arms in the air. This tends to irritate them. If you go quietly about your business, they are usually unlikely to bother you.

When you rile wasps up, or when you kill one, the critters release pheromones that call other wasps to the rescue. Therefore, it is so important not to annoy them or attack them. If you see them during the day, be calm. If you must remove them, do it at night when they are asleep.

Keep in mind that wasp removal is not always necessary or advisable. Wasps can be beneficial to your yard and garden because they are predators. They eat quite a few undesirable insects and even some spiders. They are also minor pollinators. Very often, the benefits of wasps outweigh the downsides.

Of course, if you have a wasp nest in a high traffic location, you will need to do something about it. Likewise, if you or a family member are allergic to wasp stings, you mustn't take chances.

Is It a Wasp or A Bee?

Before you take action against any creature, you should determine what it is. Your worrisome insects may not be wasps at all. If you have honeybees in your yard, for instance, you will want to deal with them differently than wasps. Honeybees are valuable pollinators, and they are endangered.

Often a beekeeper will volunteer to remove them free of charge. Alternately, you might decide to invest in a simple beehive setup and lure them away from an undesirable area to a desirable one. Many people are keeping wild bees for the bees' sake rather than for the honey these days. This decision benefits the bees, as well as the yard and garden where they live.

Like wasps, most types of bees will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Africanized honeybees are the exception to this. Take care to identify the type of bee you have before taking any steps. If you have aggressive Africanized bees, you should call in a professional to deal with them.

Will Wasps Sting?

In general, all types of wasps can become a sting insect, but some tend to sting more readily than others. There are several different types of wasps, and they vary from region to region.

To determine exactly what types of wasps live in your area, you can refer to your local ag extension or university. They usually have thorough information on habits and complete local wasp and hornet identification charts to help you familiarize yourself with local varieties.

There are many species of wasp, all of them are members of the order known as Hymenoptera. They are also members of the suborder known as Apocrita. Similar insects, such as ants and bees, do not belong to this order and suborder.

There are both social wasps, which live in groups, and solitary wasps, which live alone. Usually, the solitary types are burrowing wasps; although, mud-daubing wasps are also solitary.

Very often, burrowing wasps are quite large and alarming. It is important to remember that they perform the service of killing and eating insect pests and spiders. The solitary wasps are usually oblivious to human activity unless it interferes with them.

What Are The Basic Types Of Wasps You May Encounter?

Paper Wasp are one of the most common wasp and make nests of paper that are almost like a work of art. The nests are usually semi-spherical (umbrella shaped) and consist of a collection of tiny cubbies. These nests can usually be found in sheltered areas, such as under the eaves of a house or under a porch roof. Occasionally, paper wasps will build a nest amid a thick bush where it will have shelter from rain and wind.

Paper wasps eat insects, and they pretty much mind their own business unless they are disturbed. If you are simply tending your yard or walking past, they probably will not bother you. If you accidentally blunder into paper wasp nest, you can expect to be swarmed and badly stung.

Paper Wasps are often black and yellow striped, but this can vary by region. For example, the Red Wasps found in the southeastern US are Paper Wasps.

get rid of wasp naturally this one landing on a board

Yellow Jackets also build paper nests, but theirs are covered. They usually build them in sheltered, enclosed spaces, such as inside walls or hollow trees. These are aggressive wasps, and you need to be on the lookout for them and avoid their nesting places. If they see you, they will drive you away by swarming you and stinging you. If you are going to try to deal with them yourself, do it at night when they are asleep.

A Yellow Jacket wasp are usually yellow and orange-striped.

Hornets are social insects of the wasp genus "Vespa". They are larger than the other types of wasps. They are closely related to wasp Yellow Jacket, and also build hidden, enclosed paper nests, and are quite aggressive. They, too, should be dealt with at night or by a professional.

There are more than 20 different types of hornets along with ground hornets. Some hornets resemble large Yellow Jackets, but there are numerous colors and patterns from one region to another.

There are also lesser wasp varieties that masquerade as hornets. For example, the notorious black and white, "Bald-Faced Hornet" is just a very aggressive social wasp (which should be avoided at all costs!)

Cicada Killer Wasps: True burrowing wasps (digger wasp)are large, solitary wasps (aka Cicada Killer wasps). They dig and live in burrows and perform the important function of killing cicadas (which are dreadful pests).

They tuck the dead cicada away in the burrow and lay their eggs on it so that their babies will have something to eat. Cicada Killers are entirely beneficial and should be left alone.

Tarantula Hawks: These are also large, burrowing solitary wasps. Instead of killing cicadas, they kill tarantulas. These wasps also consume nectar. They can be as big as 2 inches long.

Unless you live in the desert or in a dry prairie area in the southwestern US, you are unlikely to encounter one. If you do, just leave it alone. Although its sting is excruciatingly painful, you have to go out of your way to get stung. Leave the Tarantula Hawk alone, and it will leave you alone.

Mud Daubers or Dirt Daubers are also solitary wasps that kill spiders. They build their nests of mud and place a spider carcass inside for their babies to eat.

These types of wasps are not as specialized as Tarantula Hawks. They kill a variety of spiders, including black widows. Like other solitary spiders, they can sting you if you bother them, but if you leave them alone, you will have no problems with them.

Dirt Daubers are a beneficial insect wasp that can happily coexist with people. If you have their nests on your porch and in your outbuildings, you will have fewer spiders in your home and around your property.

NOTE: Some people misspell this wasp's name as mud or dirt "dobber". Don't be one of those people!

Refer to this handy tutorial for pictures and descriptions and this Illustrated World Encyclopedia of Insects.

What If You Can't Avoid Wasps?

For the most part, it is possible to coexist with wasps; however, there are some situations in which you will need to deal with them. For example, if they decide to put a nest in a high traffic area where you cannot avoid encountering them, problems are bound to ensue.

Luckily, there are several natural options open to you, and you should mix and match techniques to get the best results in your situation. As with most natural problem solving, a holistic approach is best. Rather than focusing on eradicating wasps, you should design a multi-pronged program of non-attraction, aversion, relocation, and removal.

Why Are Natural Wasp Control Methods Best?

When you poison wasps, you poison the environment surrounding them (your environment) and you are bound to poison beneficial fauna along with the wasps. In the last decade of the 20th Century, the Department of Agriculture determined that as many as 80,000 American children a year were negatively impacted by coming in contact with household pesticides.

This is entirely unnecessary as there are literally dozens of natural ways to repel, redirect, and eradicate wasps. Not only are these methods effective, they are money-saving and harmless to the environment.

We've had some very interesting "ideas" or solutions on naturally keeping wasps away from the house. Have you ever heard of any of these?

Paint your soffit a light blue they won't build nests = no nests no wasps;)
Hang a CD disc that really shines and moves with very little breeze…works great.
"Baggies filled with water and pennies, hung about every 4ft around patio cover. Not 1 wasp has breached that barrier which is totally unbelievable. I had been going though 1can of wasp spray every 3 days! Also no flies!" via Facebook
"If you can safely reach the nest, put Vaseline over the spot (WD-40 works too). They won't rebuild there!" via Facebook

Those are a few "interesting ideas" but there are other natural steps you should take, to ensure you are not actually attracting them, and get rid of them once and for all.

Here is a complete collection of natural wasp control methods.

10 Ways To Get Rid Of Wasps Naturally

Minimize the things that might attract wasps to your home and yard. By preventing them setting up shop in the first place, you will have won the war without a battle.

Because wasps are predators, they are also carnivores. If you leave your pet food out, it may very well attract wasps and other unwanted pests. Feed your pet in an enclosed area and/or only feed as much as the animal will consume in one sitting.
Keep your garden plants strong with good, natural fertilizing methods, and employ natural insect repellents to keep any wasp infestation under control. If you have lots of insect pests in your veggie and flower garden, they will attract predator wasps.
Some wasps are attracted to sweet smells, so avoid wearing perfumes or perfumed products when working outdoors.
Don't wear brightly colored clothes when gardening or relaxing in your yard. Bright colors mean food to many nectar-eating critters from hummingbirds to bees to butterflies and some wasps.
Avoid creating attractive places for wasps to build nests. Loose boards, cracks, gaps, and other symptoms of deferred maintenance are attractive to wasps. Keep your home and outbuildings in a good state of repair to avoid attracting wasps.
Keep an eye out for burrows in your yard and garden. Rodents and spiders can dig holes that some types of swarming wasps will take over. When you see an abandoned animal burrow, fill it in and place a bowl or a rock over it to discourage wasps from entering.
Keep an eye on your hummingbird feeder. If you see that it is attracting wasps and other insects, you may (sadly) need to take it down. If this is the case, be sure to plant plenty of flowers to provide hummingbirds with nectar. These will not tend to attract wasps as much as strong concentrations of sugary water.
Set up dummy wasp nests to make wasps think there is already a wasp colony in residence. These insects are quite territorial. Therefore, they tend to return to the same place season after season. If they see a fake nest in place, they will avoid setting up their own nests within 200 feet, so a fake nest is how to stop wasps from coming back to a former nest site.

You can make a fake wasp nest by wadding up some newspaper, putting it in a plastic bag. Place the plastic bag full of newspaper inside a crumpled, brown paper lunch bag. Tie your fake nests in place with string anywhere you think wasps may desire to build a nest.

You can also purchase ready-made wasp decoys!

Scare wasps! This is a solution that may or may not work on wasps, but it is effective against lots of flying insects, so it's worth a try. Fill a Ziplock baggie with water and put a penny or a dime in it. Hang it in a conspicuous place where it will catch the light. For some reason, this seems to repel flying insects. One theory is that they see the bag as a spider web and are frightened off.
Mix plants into your garden and landscape that are repellent to wasps. There are several plants that they dislike. Among them are:

Peppermint
Eucalyptus
Wormwood
Spearmint
Citronella
Thyme
Bay

These are attractive, useful plants that will make a nice addition to any yard or garden. Chili pepper and cucumber plants may also be unattractive to wasps, but attractive and useful to you – as we shall see!

7 Smart Wasp Repellent Recipes & Ideas

In addition to making your surroundings unattractive to wasps and setting up passive repellents, you can and should actively use natural repellents. There are many natural concoctions you can mix up that will help keep wasps and other undesirable insects away.

Essential oils are also handy wasp and insect repellents. Peppermint oil is the go-to oil for repelling a wide variety of insects such as cockroaches, bedbugs, fleas, ants, and wasps. There are many ways to use this simple oil.

#1 Wasp Repellent Stations

There are multiple ways to make repellent stations to keep wasps away from any given area. This is an especially good way to prevent wasps from building nests under your eaves or on your porch.

Set up repellent stations by soaking cotton balls with essential oil (e.g. peppermint, spearmint, cinnamon, clove, lemon) and placing them in various locations around your house and garden. For example, you might want to secure some essential oil soaked cotton balls under the eaves of your house or on the ceiling of your porch as these are common locations for wasp nests.
You can also make wasp repellent stations using fresh lemons and whole cloves. Wasps dislike the scent of both, so combining them gives you a double whammy. To make 2 clove and lemon wasp repellent stations, just cut a fresh lemon in half and poke about a dozen whole cloves into the cut side.
You can set your half lemon in an area frequented by wasps or devise a little string hanger to hang it near a door or window, or from your porch ceiling. When the lemon withers and dries, toss it in your compost heap and make a new repellent.
You might also wish to hang slices of cucumber in areas where wasps are frequently seen. Apparently, they are repelled by the acidic properties in cucumber juice, so fresh slices of cucumber will keep them away. When the cucumber slices dry out, compost them, and replace them with new slices.
Bay leaves repel wasps, as well as other insect pests including:
- Flies
- Fleas
- Roaches

To make use of the powerful essential oils found in bay leaves (eugenol and myrcene), hang freshly cut bundles of baby twigs with leaves in areas where wasps are a problem. Hung strategically, bay leaves can keep wasps away from your house and other areas you wish to keep wasp-free.

When the leaves have dried, use them to control other types of pests. You can scatter dried bay leaves or grind up dried bay leaves and mix them with dry powders such as diatomaceous earth, boric acid, or talc to distribute in areas where pests have been seen.

#2. Peppermint Oil For Wasps Repellent Spray

So, does peppermint oil repel wasps?

You can also make a good homemade wasp spray to use over larger areas. This can be accomplished using a tablespoonful of peppermint oil and 16 ounces of water.

Note that cinnamon oil can be used in the same way as peppermint oil, and it smells more pleasant to people. Take heed, though! Cinnamon oil can burn your skin and damage your eyes, so if you decide to use it, handle it with great care.

To make a slightly stronger solution, substitute white vinegar for part or all the water.

Alternately, you can make a little fancier version by adding a tablespoon of unscented shampoo or dish soap to your mix. This may make the wasp spray a bit more effective for a little bit longer.

When you add dish soap or vinegar to the mix, it takes on killing capability. You could use this mixture to spray wasps or other insects to kill them; however, exercise extreme caution if spraying wasps. (More on that later!)

Details on Getting Rid of Wasps with Vinegar

As a repellent, start out by spraying targeted areas daily for seven days; you should replenish any peppermint or other essential oil wasp repellents on a weekly basis to stop wasps from returning.

#3 Simple Essential Oil Mix Wasp Repellent

If you don't have peppermint oil, you can use other oils at a rate of 3 tablespoons of essential oil to two cups of water and/or vinegar.

Some good choices include geranium, clove, and lemongrass. A teaspoonful of each will equal a tablespoonful.

This is a pleasant-smelling mixture that is ideal for spraying around windows and doors. It will freshen your living area and discourage wasps.

#4 Fancy Essential Oil Outdoor Wasp Repellent

For a more powerful mix that is more effective in your yard and garden and around the exterior of windows and doors, you can make a strong combination of powerhouse essential oils and vodka. Here's how!

In a 16-ounce spray bottle, mix:

1 and a half teaspoons of Oil of Lavender
5 teaspoons of Eucalyptus Oil
5 teaspoons of Pennyroyal Oil
3 teaspoons of Citronella Oil
5 teaspoons of Tea Tree Oil
2 cups of Vodka

This is a strong-smelling concoction that is ideal for use outdoors. It will not only discourage wasps from setting up shop, it will drive them away if they are already in residence. Spray daily for a week and then weekly thereafter to keep wasps from returning.

#5 Veggie Solutions to Your Wasp & Hornet Problems

If you have an abundance of hot chili peppers, you can make an effective wasp-repelling spray by chopping up a couple of hot peppers and boiling them for about five minutes in 3 cups of water.

Allow the mixture to cool and then decant it into a spray bottle. Use this spray wherever you want to keep wasps away. It can also be sprayed directly on wasps to kill them.

Take care, though. Chili peppers can cause skin irritation and can burn your eyes badly. Handle the raw chilies and your spray very carefully.

#6 Simple Soap Spray to Kill Wasps & Hornets

You can also make a plain dish soap and water spray that will kill wasps and other insects. Apparently dish soap suffocates them quickly. Just add dish soap to water at a rate of one tablespoonful of dish soap per cup of water. Decant this mixture into a spray bottle to spray small nests and individual wasps.

If you have large or high nests to eradicate, put dish soap in a garden sprayer and deluge them.

If you plan to spray wasp nests, be sure to do it at night and wear protective clothing. Cover your light source with a light cloth or use red or amber bulbs in your light source as preventative measures to keep wasps from swarming you.

#7 Get Rid Of Swarming Burrow Wasps

To get rid of swarming wasps that have taken over a burrow, you can try pouring a soap and water solution into the burrow at night and then quickly covering the entrance with a bowl or rock.

Be advised, however, that nature usually informs all burrowing animals as to the wisdom of building a back door! When you pour your soap and water solution, run. You will need to repeat this treatment half a dozen times to be effective.

Related Reading:

Can You Really Keep Wasps Away Using A Brown Paper Bag?

2 Effective Ways to Trap Wasps

Homemade wasp traps can be set near nests or near entrances to nests that are hidden inside walls or in other hard-to-reach areas. Here are a couple of good design ideas along with some variations on wasp bait. You'll need to use a little trial and error to determine what attracts your wasps best. Don't use honey because it will attract bees.

#1 Two-Liter Trap:

You can create a sugar and water trap for wasps using a two-liter soft drink bottle and some duct tape. Just take the top off the bottle and carefully cut off the top one-fifth of the bottle. There is often an indented line around the bottle at just the right point.

This will leave you with a tall, conical container and a makeshift "funnel". Insert the top part of the bottle (the funnel) into the bottom part and tape around the edges with duct tape.

Pour in a little liquid bait and set the bottle where wasps can find it. They will fly in to get the bait, but they should not be able to find their way out, so they will eventually drown.

If you find your wasps are escaping, try pouring in a little cooking oil to coat the "funnel" and the inside of the trap to make it slippery.

Discard the soda bottle trap when it is full of dead wasps and/or the liquid has evaporated. You could take it apart and refill it; however, peeling off the duct tape and handling dead or angry wasps is difficult, disgusting, and potentially dangerous. Reusing the plastic bottle once is helpful in reducing plastic waste. No need to be a hero.

#2 Glass Jar Wasp Trap:

For a more easily reusable trap, you can simply use a large glass jar with a lid.

Drill a "wasp-sized" hole in the lid and coat the inside of the lid with a little jam or jelly. Pour an inch or so of sugar water or other sweet liquid in the jar and put on the lid.

Wasps will enter through the small hole and should not be able to find their way back out again. With this type of trap, you can easily unscrew the lid, dispose of the contents, and reuse the trap.

Wasp Bait Recipes & Ideas

Sugar Water Bait

Combine a cup of sugar with two cups of boiling water. Allow it to cool before pouring it into your trap. Store unused portion in the fridge.

If you find that your sugar water bait is attracting lots of beneficial fauna, such as honey bees or butterflies, change to a different recipe using apple cider vinegar.

How to get rid of wasps with vinegar:

Apple Cider Vinegar Wasp Bait

Combine:

2 cups of sugar water
A quarter cup of apple cider vinegar
Half a tablespoon of jam or jelly
A quarter teaspoonful of dish soap

This combination should not be quite as attractive to other types of flying insects. If you find you are still getting non-targeted insects, you might try:

Sweet-scented laundry soap
Cola or other soft drink
Fruit juice
Beer

4 Powdered Solutions To Wasp Problem Pest Control

When wasps or hornets make nests inside of walls or in other hard-to-access places, you can sometimes use a powdered repellent or natural wasp killer pesticide scattered around the entrance to drive them off and/or kill them.

Some swarming wasps will occasionally live in abandoned burrows. These are opportunists who take advantage of existing burrows. These wasps may also make nests under your house.

Social wasp nests located in burrows can be treated with dry powders such as diatomaceous earth, boric acid, talc, and/or cinnamon powder. Just distribute the powder generously around the opening of the burrow.

#1 – Diatomaceous Earth

DE kills insects by drying out the wax coating on their bodies and working its way into the joints of their legs and exoskeletons. This causes both injury and desiccation. Diatomaceous earth like this does not kill instantly, but given a few days, it will significantly reduce the numbers of the targeted insect population.

#2 – Boric Acid Powder

Boric acid is poisonous to wasps (as it is to most insect pests). If you can safely distribute boric acid like this in areas where wasps will encounter it, you can kill off a significant number of them.

#3 – Powdered Cinnamon

Powdered cinnamon is repellent. Just as with bay, cinnamon contains eugenol essential oil, which wasps do not like. If you can sprinkle cinnamon around areas where wasps have been seen, it will repel them. You'll need to refresh your cinnamon repellent on a weekly basis to keep wasps away.

#4 – Baby Powder

Wasps are apparently also repelled by baby powder, so if you can safely sprinkle it around their haunts, it will cause them to pack their bags and leave. You must apply this benign substance daily until all wasps are gone.

In the case of diatomaceous earth and/or boric acid, wasps and hornets will die from encountering the powder, and they will carry the powder into the burrow or nest where other wasps will encounter it. In the case of talc and/or cinnamon, the powder will repel them from the burrow.

You'll need to apply powdered solutions daily for a week or so to reduce or eliminate the population. Remember to do this at night when the wasps are sleeping. Even though most wasps will not attack you if you are not bothering them, they are very likely to interpret your sprinkling of strange things around the entrance to their home as bothersome!

Remember that the more aggressive and testy wasps and hornets (e.g. the Bald-Faced Hornet) tend to have deeply hidden nests. Placing powdered deterrents outside the entrances of hidden wasp and hornet nests can be a smart and passive way to get rid of them slowly. If you don't have success with these methods within a month, call in a professional to deal with hidden, difficult-to-access wasp and hornet nests.

Relocate a Small Wasp Nest Colony

When you have large wasp infestations and populations to deal with, you may need to spray with a natural solution to knock the nest down and possibly kill off its inhabitants. If the nest is easily accessible and not too big, you may wish to try relocating it. Naturally, there are risks involved, so this method is not for the faint of heart (or people allergic to wasp stings).

To relocate a small wasp nest, you'll need a disposable container with a tightly fitting lid that is large enough to completely cover the nest. You'll also need a thin, stiff piece of cardboard or plastic. Here's what you'll do:

Wait until it is completely dark and all the wasps are home and asleep. Creep up on the nest holding your flashlight low so as not to wake them.
Cover the nest with your container and slide your piece of cardboard or plastic under it to sever the nest's connection from the surface upon which it is mounted.
Hold the cardboard or plastic firmly over the container and place the lid on top of it.
Carefully slide the cardboard or plastic out and affix the lid firmly.
Carry the sealed container far away. You may even want to drive it somewhere.
Set the container in an area that has trees, old buildings, etc., that wasps may like.
Lift the lid slightly and gently, and run away!

Likely, the wasps will still be sound asleep, but running away is still advisable.

Bag 'Em!

A variation on this involves using a plastic or cloth bag with a drawstring. If you are brave enough and quick enough to wrestle the bag over the nest without getting stung, more power to you.

If you have no wish to relocate a bag full of wasps, you can drop the bag into a garbage can full of soapy water, drop a rock or brick on it, and then put the lid on the garbage can.

For extra measure, you could be sure the can is sitting where it will get full sun in the daylight and wait a week before removing the lid. This is an effective (albeit risky and fiendish) way to kill off a nest full of wasps.

Related Reading: Weed Killers Safe For Pets

5 Ways To Be Smart & Safe When Dealing with Wasps

It is possible to get rid of a wasp nest without getting stung. You just must be very careful and very smart. Whenever you set out to deal with wasps, be prepared! Wear protective clothing and shoes, and be ready to run.

#1 – Plot your escape route before you do anything else.

#2 – Dress for the occasion!

When you move in, you'll need:

Head and face covering. A scarf wrapped around your head and face, covered by a hood is recommended.
Long pants tucked into socks
Long-sleeved shirt
High boots
Goggles
Gloves

Make sure all your garments are closely fitted and there is no gap where a wasp could slip in and sting the dickens out of you. Remember that wasps can sting multiple times.

#3 – Go at night. Wasps sleep at night and you will have much better luck moving or eliminating them when it is dark out. Use shielded, tinted, or dimmed lights so as not to rile them.

#4 – Tackle your wasp problem early on. If you let the nest stay in place for a long time before dealing with it, it will just get bigger and more difficult to manage or eradicate.

#5 – Only attempt to deal with nests that are easily accessible. If you have to climb a ladder or squeeze through a narrow opening to get to it, call in a professional. If things go wrong, you don't want to fall off a ladder or get stuck while being swarmed.

The Benefits of Wasps Usually Outweigh the Detriments

There are over 30,000 different kinds of wasps in the world, and they aren't all bad. In fact, overall, they are beneficial. It is far better to discourage them from your living space by eliminating hiding places and setting up circumstances that they dislike than it is to try to kill them off.

Wasp stings can certainly hurt, and if you are allergic to them they can be quite dangerous. Even so, fearing and hating wasps is not necessary.

While they are not as remarkably beneficial as bees when it comes to pollination, they are pollinators.

Wasps are also predators, so they help keep the populations of pest insects under control. For example, some types of wasps use grubs and caterpillars to feed their young.

There are also wasps that help keep the outdoors clean and tidy. Yellow jackets, for example, are scavengers. They use dead insects to feed their young.

There are even types of wasps and hornets that assist in the production of wine grapes. They feed on the late-season grapes that are filled with wild yeast.

When they feed their queen wasps, the yeast stays with her through the winter and then is carried back to the grape plants by new wasps in the spring time.

Although many people believe that wasps are just aggressive and will attack for no reason, this is really untrue. Wasps simply seek to protect what they consider to be their territory.

Generally speaking, if you behave in a calm and quiet manner around wasps and don't bother them, they will not bother you.

Be that as it may, sometimes wasps set up their nests in very inconvenient places where you cannot avoid encountering them.

When you take a proactive approach to wasp control and use a smart combination of the natural solutions presented here, you can save money and keep your home and garden safe from both wasps and pesticides!

How have you dealt with wasps at home?