By
Carol O’Meara, Boulder County Extension
In an
annual emergence in spring, the queens are awakening, shrugging off a winter’s
sleep with conquest on their minds.
They’re strong, hungry, and looking for real estate in which to build a
nest – probably under your porch, your patio, or in the rock walls of the
raised garden.
|
Western Yellowjacket |
Yellow
jackets are beginning their year, and to keep your yard from the black and
yellow bullies, these queens must die.
In winter, yellow jacket colonies die, leaving only queens survive. They emerge when the weather warms in spring
to begin colonization of our landscapes. Waking up eager to feed and alone,
they’re the ones out foraging for food; by trapping her, you will prevent
hundreds of her offspring from harassing your family in fall.
Put out
your wasp traps now, filled with heptyl butyrate, or design your own with
chunks of cantaloupe – all it takes is a 2-liter sized pop bottle. Cut the top off the bottle at the shoulders,
turn it around and slide it into to the lower part of the bottle so the neck
points inwards, and staple this together.
Before you fit the top on, fill the bottle with a small amount of
cantaloupe. Some wasps prefer protein,
so make another trap and put a bit of lunch meat in it. Hang these away from your house.
|
European Paper Wasp |
Another
wasp that’s becoming active is the European Paper Wasp, Polistes dominulus. This builds open-faced nests up in the eaves,
inside sheds, and in other spots located above ground. They aren’t aggressive unless you get too
close to the nest; if you do, then they
may sting.
Paper
wasps look a lot like yellow jackets but aren’t attracted to traps at all. They’re predators, hunting the yard for
soft-bodied insects. They, too, start
the spring with a single queen per colony, so if they bother you, wallop them
with a flyswatter.
As long
as we’re on a painful topic in gardening, it’s time to talk ticks. Good health in gardening involves
understanding potential risks and avoiding them where possible. Gardeners are familiar with mosquito
avoidance, but ticks remain a bit less publicized, and perhaps less
understood. Of the 30 species we have in
Colorado, none are those known to carry Lyme disease, which is fairly serious in
the eastern U.S.. However, ticks can
carry other problems and gardeners should take steps to keep themselves free of
them.
Ticks
begin activity in early April when the young hatch from eggs and crawl to the
top of tall objects to wait for an unsuspecting animal to walk by. Size is relative when you’re a newly hatched
tick nymph, and a tall object to a tick is a grass stalk. There, at the top of the stalk, many
‘ticklets’ bivouac – a cheery term for describing a mass of the tiny creatures
hoping for dinner to come to them.
Keeping
ticks at bay involves simple precautions.
If possible, stay away from areas that ticks like, such as animal trails
through brushy areas, at the edges of fields, wooded or shrubby areas and
grasslands. But if you want to enjoy the
outdoors, a better approach would be to wear protective clothing that includes
long pants with socks pulled up over the lower cuffs. Repellents may also be applied to clothing to
help ward off ticks.
If you
find yourself in tick country, don’t panic.
Ticks take time to attach, usually several hours, so there is time to
check yourself and remove them. If
possible, have another person help you check – nothing quite says “I love you”
like checking one another for parasites.
I have had European wasps nesting in birdhouses and old-fashioned clothesline pipes for many years now, and never got stung - until last year, in August, when they suddenly seemed to become aggressive, leading to several incidences of family members getting stung, with no provocation except that of getting within 6 feet of nests. Quick application of ice, Benadryl, and a product called "Sting Stop" meant no suffering. Anyone else experience more aggressive behavior than expected from the European wasps last year?
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