![\"\"](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2022\/06\/wasps.jpg\")
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My war against annoying flying pests continues. <\/span><\/p>\n The battle against mosquitoes seems to be going well<\/a>. Eliminating and treating standing water around my house has significantly reduced the number of mosquitoes I’ve encountered this summer. Huzzah!<\/span><\/p>\n It’s time to move on to my next winged enemy: the wasp. <\/span><\/p>\n Just look at one of those narrow-waisted, stinger-wielding insects. It looks like a total a-hole. <\/span><\/p>\n We get a lot of wasps flying around our pool area. They’re mean and aggressive. Each member of our family has been stung by one at least once. And boy, does a wasp sting hurt. <\/span><\/p>\n Last year, we had a swarm of wasps living near our front porch. The stupid pests were scaring off the delivery men. Our packages were being left on the driveway instead of by our door. When I went to eliminate the nest, several wasps ganged up on me and stung me multiple times. <\/span><\/p>\n A-holes. The whole lot of them. <\/span><\/p>\n After my wasp mugging last summer, I looked into what I could do to control wasps around my house. Here’s my report. <\/span><\/p>\n There are a bunch of different kinds of wasps, a category which includes hornets and yellowjackets. The majority of wasp species are solitary wasps, which live by themselves, don\u2019t build large nests, and aren’t very aggressive. Mud daubers, potter wasps, and spider wasps are examples of non-aggressive solitary wasps. You usually don’t have to be concerned about solitary wasps; in fact, solitary wasps can be a help in the garden as they kill other insects and act as a form of biological pest control. <\/span><\/p>\n It’s the social wasps that you’ve got to worry about. Here in Oklahoma, paper wasps and yellowjackets are the most common social wasps. These jagweeds live together in a honeycombed nest and often work together in an attack. They’re highly aggressive and territorial. And unlike bees that lose their stinger after they stick their victim, social wasps don’t. They’ll keep hammering away at you until they no longer consider you a threat.<\/span><\/p>\n Social wasps are household enemy number one.<\/span><\/p>\n Unlike mosquitoes, there’s not much you can do to prevent wasps from showing up on your property. Most wasps feast on other insects, but they also eat plants, nectar, fruit, honey, and various human foods. (Yellowjackets get particularly hungry for sugar in the fall, which is why they swarm your foliage-appreciating picnic.) You can thus reduce wasp feeding sites by covering your trash and ensuring you don’t have any fallen, rotting fruit on the ground. <\/span><\/p>\n But other than that, your options for wasp prevention are limited; if wasps decide the corner of your porch is a great place to build a nest, well, they’re going to build a nest there.<\/span><\/p>\nKnow Your Enemy<\/h2>\n
To Get Rid of Wasps, You Have to Eliminate the Nest<\/h2>\n