How to Make a Yellow Jacket Trap: All You Need To Know

Beekeepers must deal with a slew of honey bee pests. Yellow jackets are a hazard to honey bee populations in the autumn. This can result in beehives producing losses for the beekeeper. A honeybee colony that has been invaded by yellow jackets does not have enough honey reserves to survive the winter.

Although yellow jacket wasps are beneficial to the environment, they are damaging to beekeepers’ honeybee colonies. While it is not recommended to search for and destroy all of them, it is advisable to strive to keep their numbers as low as possible. Learning how to make a yellow jacket trap is one way to combat the attack.

What is a yellow jacket?

Contrary to popular belief, the Yellow Jackets are not bees. They are members of the wasp family, which is related to the bee family. Late summer is the season when colony size is at its peak.

There are numerous methods for dealing with these venomous wasps. Insecticide sprays, fly rackets, and even yellow jacket wasp traps are available. Nothing is off-limits in this fight.

How to Make a Yellow Jacket Trap 2

Why beekeepers dislike Yellow Jackets?

Yellow jackets are voracious carnivores. When given the chance, these wasps will assault honey bees. They will consume the parent bee, the growing baby bee within the hive, and steal the honey.

Wasp predators are frequently seen near the entrance of the hive by beekeepers. The Yellow Jacket can attack adult bees in front of a hive at this location. In general, these few wasps pose little risk to honeybee hives. That is not always the case, however. This is one of the honey bee pests that can be eradicated from the bee garden. Wasps can kill an increasing number of guard bees, weakening the honey bee colony.

When does a Yellow Jacket trap work best?

The Yellow Jacket colony, like many wasp colonies, is not overcrowded. A mated queen spends the winter hibernating under bark or other debris. It emerges in the spring and begins to build its nest. This is why we don’t see the large Yellow Jacket nests until the season is over.

A swarm of Yellow Jackets buzzing around the hive is a nuisance for beekeepers. This worsens as we approach the fall. So, in late spring or early summer, you should capture the first queen bees to prevent the formation of a colony.

Types of DIY Yellow Jacket Traps

There are two types of handmade yellow jacket traps available. Each individual can make use of locally available materials. These traps are not difficult to construct. The pot bait yellow coat trap and the 2 liter bottle trap are the two sorts of traps. In some areas, beekeepers may employ variations of these two traps. You can also employ both traps at the same time if you like.

How to make bait for yellow jacket trap?

The basin-meat bait trap is the first yellow jacket trap we will look at. This trap employs a wide-mouthed container and meat as its bait. Any container with a broad mouth can be used in this trap. Wider lips allow for more bait to be placed and slow the creation of a life raft by deceased yellow jackets.

This type of trap uses soapy water to hasten the death of trapped insects. It has the idea that a yellow coat carrying a bit of flesh falls a few inches as it begins its flight back to the nest. The yellow coat is exposed to the water in this trap for several inches as it falls. It cannot fly away and, as a result, dies.

The things you need to set up this golden jacket trap include:

  • Water.
  • The barrel has a wide mouth that can hold water.
  • Refrigerator food containers may work if you don’t have the right sized pots.
  • A small wooden plank can run across the mouth of your water container.
  • Soap.
  • Meat bait – fresh chicken is good for the job.
  • A great location for your trap.

To make the Basin-Meat bait Yellow Jacket trap, follow the steps below:

  • Add water to your wide mouth container.
  • Next is to add a small amount of soap to the water. This helps prevent wasps from climbing out of the trap and speeds up their death rate. Any liquid laundry detergent or soap will work well with this yellow coat trap.
  • Finally, attach your fresh chicken bait to the wooden plank. A rope or several screws is enough to attach the bait to the wooden plank.

When constructing this trap, place the wooden board with the bait on top of the water container. If you don’t have a wooden plank, make do with any other suitable substitute, such as a piece of metal with enough width. The bait is angled downward toward the container’s water. A 1-inch space is allowed between the meat bait and the soapy water in the container. Yellow jackets fall into the water in the container when the basin-meat bait yellow jacket trap is set up in this manner.

How to Make a Yellow Jacket Trap 2

How to make a yellow jacket trap with water bottle?

The second most common type of trap is a trap that uses a 2-liter bottle and liquid bait. This trap is very simple to build and deploy. You can hang it on a string near the church or your yellow vest nest. You have 2 ways to set up this type of trap. Both are very good at catching and sinking yellow vests.

You can use liquid bait in the 2-liter bottle yellow jacket trap. It is an essential part of the trap. You can also add some meat to the liquid bait to make the lure with the yellow coat more appealing. The liquid bait in this trap usually has sugar in it. You can dilute it to make it less attractive to honey bees, but it may attract yellow coats.

All you need to make this trap is a liquid bait that mixes sugar, water, apple cider vinegar and some banana peels. The dosage of each type is as follows:

  • ¼ cup sugar.
  • 1 banana peel.
  • 4 cups of water.
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar.
  • Shave.

Step:

  • Cut a hole in the top of the bottle or the neck of the bottle using a sharp knife. If you choose to chop off the top of the bottle, use it as a funnel by placing it upside down within the bottle.
  • In a mixing basin, combine sugar, banana peels, water, and vinegar to produce a bait mix. Mix them thoroughly, then leave to ferment for a day or use them right away in a trap. You do not have to use the entire prepared mixture in the bottle at once.
  • You can enhance the effect by adding some meat to this trap. The best meat is chicken, but you can also use horse meat, cold cuts without much loss of effect. Remove any rotting meat from the trap because yellow jackets do not eat meat not fresh.

How do the two traps compare?

Because the basin-meat bait yellow jacket trap does not employ sugary bait, it has no risk of mistakenly attracting honey bees. This is an excellent beekeeping trap for use around the house throughout the yellow coat season. The trap’s large crest allows it to catch numerous yellow jackets at once.

A yellow jacket trap with a water bottle is simple to construct and install. You can build multiple traps and place them across your storage area. This trap is good at capturing yellow jackets and holding them until they die. One advantage of using this trap is that it can assist you in combating other insect predators of honey bees.

Conclusion

The yellow jacket trap instructions above will assist you in protecting your bees from any incursions. The number of yellow coats you observe around and the resources you may easily access influence your trap decision.

To differing degrees, all of these traps are effective. Remember that though a yellow jacket attack can linger for several hours, you may not be able to intervene in time. Preventing wasp infestations through yellow jacket population control is the most effective technique to ensure that honeybee colonies survive.

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