Man have the yellowjackets been a problem with my bees this year (as well as the bald-faced wasp/hornet?). I do not have any empathy for these two critters. I have wasp traps that I put beer in to attract and destroy. I have to do battle emotionally with this, because I do know that these wasps are predatory and can help so much with reducing the catarpillars and other insects in the garden, but so can BTK and that is a pretty safe biological pest control measure. I was actually out by the bee colonies yesterday, fly swatter in hand, to assist with smacking the yellowjackets that ignored the beer and were trying to get in the hives. It was a sunny day, still rather cool though, as I stood with swatter in hand, I watched a yellowjacket go to the entrance of a hive (which is reduced to prevent too much cold air coming in and help the bees protect their home), a couple of bees came out to greet it to ward it away, and it grabbed one of the bees and started to fly off with it. Yikes!!!! I honestly have to say that a honey harvest, along with all the other healthy benefits from hive products is far more important in my life than allowing the yellowjackets to live in great numbers. I will probably always have a war with the wasps as long as I keep bees. Beer works pretty good, but am wondering if anyone else has had good results with their war against the wasps, I am sure that I am not the only one facing this problem. I have seen in a store a mimic of a wasp hive that one would hang near their bees, this apparently keeps the wasps away, but I did not believe this strong enough to actually purchase one. Has anyone seen these mimic hives and used one? I saw a documentary on TV about the giant wasp in Japan, this wasp goes into a bee colony and destroys the entire bunch of bees, thank goodness this predator is not here, it was horrifying to see the damage done by this monsterous insect.
