How to Get Rid of Wasps and Prevent Future Nests
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Why are wasps attracted to your property, and what can you do to get them to leave?
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Wasps can be an annoying presence in your yard, building nests, buzzing around your backyard barbecues, and threatening with painful stings. But for those with serious allergies to insect stings, wasps can be life threatening, especially if they set up shop by nesting in and around your home.
Luckily, you have options for keeping these winged invaders from taking over your yard. We’ve tapped Matt Smith, owner of Green Pest Management in Delaware, and David Price, a certified entomologist and director of technical services with Mosquito Joe, to help us identify the best methods for ridding wasps. Whether looking for solutions to prevent wasps from making your house their home or need to take out an existing nest, we have solutions. Here’s how to get rid of wasps.
What attracts wasps to your yard?
The old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure holds true for ridding your yard of wasps. Get rid of wasps outside by eliminating the things attracting them to your home.
- Garbage: “(Wasps) all will seek out food sources that are both sweet and protein-based,” Price says. With that in mind, he suggests wrapping up soda cans before disposing of them, tying garbage bags tightly before dropping them in the trash bin, and cleaning up drippings and food scraps after grilling.
- Flowers: Price points out that wasps, like bees, are attracted to nectar and hence any flowers growing in your yard. “If you have aromatic flowers, you may want to reduce or locate them in the yard where people are not hanging about,” he says.
- Fruit: If you have any fruit trees or bushes in your yard, expect them to attract wasps, Price says. Wasps like rotten fruit best, so pick up fallen fruit before it begins to ferment.
- Water: Wasps require water to hydrate and create their nests, so they’re often attracted to bird baths, puddles, water features, and other standing water in your yard. Remove any water sources you can bear to part with to reduce wasp activity.
The Impact of Wasp Infestations
While wasps don’t typically pose the same destructive threat to your home as termites and carpenter ants, they can if allowed to linger. “Wasps can most definitely damage homes,” Smith says. “They can get into attics and ruin ceilings and sheetrock.”
Price points out that since wasps chew on wood, they have the ability to destroy a home’s structural support.
“When you discover a wasp’s nest, take the appropriate action to remove them as you do not want the insects to continue wreaking havoc on your property, destroying wood and weakening your home’s structure little by little,” he says.
Wasps can also pose a serious threat to humans. Not only are their stings painful, but they can also be life threatening for those with allergies to stinging insects. In fact, the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology reports that there are an average of 72 deaths per year from insect stings.
Common Types of Wasps
The best way to get rid of wasps is to know your enemy as well as possible. When you know which species you’re dealing with, you can maximize your odds of victory.
| Type of Wasp | Description | Nest |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow jacket (Vespula spp.)  |
Alternating black-and-yellow pattern that runs the length of their bodies, which typically measure about ½ inch long. | Spherical nests built from paper-like material can reach the size of a basketball. Yellow jackets nest in shrubs, high in trees and near the ground in logs, or even underground. |
| European hornet (Vespa crabro)  |
¾-inch long. Brown with yellow stripes on the abdomen and a light-colored face. | Usually build their paper nests in tree hollows, attics, wall voids, and other sheltered areas. In general, hornets typically build their nests, which can reach up to 24 inches in length, in elevated places, such as trees and overhangs on buildings. |
| Mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium)  |
Slender, delicate-looking bodies that are usually black with light-colored markings and a metallic sheen. Daubers are ¾-inch to 1-inch long. | Mud daubers do not live in colonies. Instead, the Females typically build a nest of small 1-inch-long tubes from mud. Their nests can usually be found under roof eaves or on porch ceilings, or in garages, sheds, barns, or even inside homes. |
| Paper wasp (Polistes spp.)  |
Mostly dark brown in color with yellow and sometimes red markings. They can look very similar to yellow jackets, although paper wasps are much thinner around the “waist” and have orange-tipped antennae. | Made of a paper-like material built from wood fiber gathered from plants, paper wasp nests have a bulbous shape that resembles a paper lantern, and the honeycomb structure of the nest is often visible. They are typically found hanging from the branches of trees or shrubs, but you can also find them attached to door frames, deck joists, eaves, and porch ceilings. |
How to Know if You Have a Wasp Infestation
You can determine whether wasps have set up shop on your property by looking for a few telltale signs.
- Increase in wasp activity: Seeing the occasional wasp here and there may be no cause for alarm, but if you see a lot of wasps flying around your home, chances are they have established a nest somewhere.
- Wood damage: Wasps create their nests by chewing up wood to create pulp. If you noticed small holes on exterior parts of your home, it could be wasps.
- Nests: Wasps nests are made of either mud or particles of wood. Some wasp nests look like a large ball of paper about the size of a basketball. Wasp nests made from mud have a vase-like shape and are typically stuck in a niche, such as the corner of the ceiling on a covered porch.
- Buzzing noise: Wasps that are building a nest make a telltale buzzing noise. If you hear this noise, try to locate its source to determine if a nest is nearby.
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