Natural Ways to Get Rid of Bees and Territorial Wasps

Yellow jacket

yellow jacket

Certain varieties of bees and wasps are aggressive in preserving their nests. These guys can be a danger to those allergic and attract other pests with the remaining smell of honey or dead insects for years to come. Observing your pest with double layered clothing and gloves will lead you to their homes were you want to remove them later at night. A local Bee Keeper will take the queen for free and her workers will follow. No one will remove wasps for free,  and their methods will be to use poisons that you may not want in your garden. 

Wear thick clothing such as: old sweat pants, thick long sleeved shirt, hat, neck scarf and gloves are necessary. Do not swat them. Do not wear perfume.

I don't want to remove my flowers fountains and pool that these unwelcome guests enjoy. My daughter is allergic so they must go.

Wasps that have mud nests in the ground can be killed off by pouring a pot of boiling water on the entrance of the nest while they sleep.

Another slower but effective method is to create a wasp feeder for them. This really is not a "feeder" like one you might have for hummingbirds because this is war. Take an empty green two liter plastic soda bottle and cut the top 1/3 off with a box cutter. (Green is better  because it provides some sun screen and visual distraction but clear are fine.)  The top piece is used inverted into the bottom 2/3 of the bottle. Staple the two together. (This project so reminds me of the bottle rockets we made for science but that's another story). You can poke two large holes through to be able to tie a heavy string through the bottle on opposite sides which will enable you to hang the bottle near to where the wasps currently forage during the day.

Fill the bottle with apple juice or seven up or any sweet smelling sugar juice and spill a little around to attract the wasps. You can even decorate your bottle with colors - flower colors are useful ( but don't use paint that smells). The wasps will enter and they either drown or are too drunk to figure out how to get out of the inverted cup. They starve and die in a day or so. The "feeder" will need to be cleaned when you see it with a number of dead guys or moldy because soon as it smells bad the wasps lose interest in entering what they now smell as a death trap.

Oil of citronella, orange oil, peppermint oil, and eucalyptus oil can be used on patio furniture, doors and humans to repel bees and wasps. Wasps do not like wormwood and eucalyptus but there really is no plant excepting oleander that bees do not care for. Learn to tolerate them for their good properties but move them away from your home. Plant cucumbers and use the peels and juice- bees don't care for the smell.

 I don't suggest smoking them out as it might be just as easy to have a pile of newspaper burning get out of control and burn your house but not the bees. Hairspray is works on their wings as it makes them too heavy to fly, but in order to get the purple can of Aquanet close enough, you will need protective clothing.

My favorite tool is my power washer, my now fourteen year old son has the same curiosity with spraying the eves of our two story house to remove spiders. Keeping the bees away from starting a colony in my walls is the best way to avoid them from returning. Encourage them to move on, the first days they swarm before they build a mess in your walls.

leaf cutter bee

If you have no luck finding a bee keeper who will relocate the bees for free or minimal cost here are some natural ways that don't require pesticides:

Bowl of sugar water with with dawn soap.

1 cup water 1/2 cup sugar teaspoon dawn 

The bees are attracted to the sugar - they think it is honey.

Use a colorful bowl or float some flowers.

The bees will drown. If they fly off the soap is sticky on

their wings. This will reduce the worker population in a nest.

 Windex and Spray Nine have outdoor window washing bottles that attach to a normal hose.

You can use the bottle with water and 1/4 cup dawn dish soap. Wear protective clothing and

wash the nest. You must remove all the wax, dead bees and honey or the nest will rot and smell

to high heaven, thus attracting ants and more bees.



brown recluse spider very nasty... that's another post about organic ways to avoid stinging, biting and icky

Putting the Flag Back Up

Jerry Brown has courage. He took an issue and wrestled it to the ground by the horns. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac squashed the PACE program earlier this month. I wrote about how short sighted this decision was as we need to find ways to be independent of foreign oil. The upfront cost to put in a solar system for my home was $26,900.00. The idea of putting out the cash when I do not know how long I will stay in my giant home (with children going to college) seemed unwise.




The PACE program would have allowed me to retrofit a solar system and free me from electric bills. The cost would have been added on the property tax bill like mosquito abatement or other underground electric pole improvements over a twenty year payment program. The PACE program also was going to help construction jobs in Orange County, when the building industry is at an all-time slow right now. More than seventy local construction companies have taken the classes to be certified, all for nothing. The program was expected to create 15000 local jobs in Orange County.



In a lawsuit filed yesterday Brown, our attorney general accused the FHFA of mischaracterizing the program as a loan rather than an assessment, and argued its decision not to cooperate with the program could cost the state up to $100 million in government subsidies. The suit asks the court to force Fannie and Freddie to recognize the program correctly as assessments.



The death of the PACE program stops the more than $450 million in planned projects to be cancelled In an election year when Jerry Brown has only 5% of the funding for a campaign he takes a risky move in taking on our federal government. I see him championing issues for California in new and exciting ways. As our governor 1974- two terms he was nicknamed “moonbeam” for his idea of having a satellite for California emergency communications, funny how today satellites are the norm not some silly idea. Jerry Brown is a smart guy, ahead of his time. Why on earth would we not want to use solar in a state that has sunshine more days than not?

http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1951

Photo courtesy Larry Hagman and solar tech

Everybody can Change...

Being Green is Blue today

Green energy just got a kick in the pants from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The PACE program, or property assessed clean energy program is not going to allowed by the Federal Housing Authority.


I looked into putting a solar system on my home. The cost was approximately, $ 26,900. Which would save my monthly utility bill of $ 500. Instead of paying for this in cash the city allows a program which puts it on my tax bill, just like mosquito abatement or other bond measures which are paid over time. It would allow financing the solar system or energy efficient retrofits which would be paid back over twenty years. If I sell my home the benefit goes to the new owner and so does the bill.

It appears that moving away from our dependency on oil is only rhetoric. With the rising costs of oil and utilities a program which made sense has been squashed.