Wasps Hold Local Woman Hostage

That's what the newspaper article would read if any one gave a poop.  Yesterday I went out to put Bay Leaves in the ant trails leading up to the house (by the way, Bay Leaves work amazing at ant removal.  Takes a couple of days, but they HATE those things!) and I started getting chased by a wasp.  I mean aggressively chased.  Then another joined in, and another.  I am in my front yard screaming and flailing around like I'm some bizarre gay ninja dance trying to escape what I am certain is an impending painful death.  *helpmehelpmehelpme*  I hitch up my skirt and run for the house, next to tears, and lament over the fact that my beautiful babes have to pass through this flying stinging insect labyrinth when they get off the bus.  How am I going to protect them from a force of nature?

Ok, Maybe I sound like a wuss.  Maybe I am.  But, in my defense, I am TERRIFIED of flying stinging insects.  I have been allergic to them since I was a child and years of paranoia have manifested in to a full blown phobia.  This only makes the fact that I want our own bee hives an absolute hilarity.  It's completely justified and Matt agrees, it's just freaking funny that I want them in the first place. 

After having to escape my home via the back door to take the doggies potty I decided that I was not going to live as a hostage held in fear all summer because of something 1/1000 my size and neither were my girlies.  Soooo....  Google to the rescue. I saw several suggestions for ridding ourselves of these pests (I know, wasps are good, they kill flies, blah blah blah....  they also kill me.  Flies are just annoying.  Wasps lose!), but since I was not about to go outside at dusk dressed like a winterized scare crow with my clothes duck taped together with nothing but a smoking stick and a plastic bag, my options became greatly limited.  I decided to go with making traps.  An ingenious idea that proves two things; not only are wasps mean as sin but dumb as a brick too.  It involves a plastic drink bottle (they say 2 liter, but since we don't drink pop, I used V8 V-fusion bottles) being cut in two and reassembled with water in the bottom and sticky sweet bait to lure them to their watery graves! *bwahahahahaha*.  I like to call it the Siren's Cave.  I'm the only one who thinks it's funny though.  Or maybe my 7 and 10 yr olds don't quite get the Odyssey reference just yet.  Either way, I was the only one who laughed entirely too much at the joke.

The idea is that the delicious bait (honey/agave) will lure the demon spawn into the bottle and down the funnel to the mouth.  After they go in for some free food (yay! snacks!) they can't get out because the stupid things can't figure out they need to fly down to go out of the mouth.  They just buzz around the highest point, tire out, fall into the water below, and die a horrible death!  FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!!!!  That is exactly the type of death I was hoping for them...  horrible!!!

I gathered my supplies and realized I hadn't bought any Duck tape the last time I went to the store (I'm surprised my kids haven't revolted yet!  We use Duck tape for a TON of kid crafts!).  Ok, crappers, um...  Ooh look, masking tape.  It's skinny and barely sticks, but I'll make it work.  I'm pretty sure.  Now where's the Xacto knife?  Oh, M.I.A.  Spectacular.  Bread knife it is (The rest are dirty.  I hate dishes and I'm trying to unload that chore on my kids... shhhh).  I went ahead made the first trap (no sense in looking like a donkey butt on my 3rd blog post) and realized that the bread knife was great for starting the cut, but not finishing it.  So I adjusted to kitchen shears to finish cutting the bottle.  All told, they turned out really well.  I don't think they've caught anything yet, but then again, I'm too chicken to check.  Meh.

Here's a tutorial for you if you would like to make your own.  Plus, starting now will GREATLY reduce the number you have to deal with later in the season!

Wasp Trap Tutorial (please forgive my horrible nails):

 Step 1. Find a plastic bottle to use for your trap.

 Step 2. Gather supplies. (sharp knife, duck tape (or masking tape), kitchen shears)

Step 3. Remove lid from bottle.

Step 4.  Set lid aside for later use.

Step 5. Lay Bottle on it's side and Measure 1/3 to 1/4 of the way down for a place to cut bottle.

 

Step 6. Start cut with knife.

Step 7. Finish cutting bottle through with Kitchen Shears.

Step 8. Measure about 1/3 to 1/4 up remaining bottle bottom for water line.

Step 9.  *optional* Put in about 4 squirts of dish soap.  The weight of the dish soap will pull the vermin under the water faster.  But this is by no means necessary. (We buy dish soap in bulk, then put our soap in an old hand soap pump for easy and mess fee dispensing)

Step 10. Get clean h2o, pour into bottle bottom until your fill line is reached.  If you pour too much, just pour it back out.  Not a biggie.

 

*Step 11. Put the top of the bottle, cut side down, onto the cutting board.

*Step 12. Take masking tape and place over the edge of the original bottle opening and fold around it.  Do this step 4 times until a "square" is made.

*Step 13. Wrap tape around and around the mouth of the bottle to secure other tape from lifting.

*Step 14. Take powdered sugar or corn starch and scoop up with lid (see, told ya we'd use it later!).

*Step 15.  Place Bottle top upside down into open end of bottle bottom and dump sugar/corn starch into the upside down bottle top making sure to get it on exposed tape.  This will keep the little buggers from sticking to the sticky side of the tape.

Step 16.  Place bottle top side ways on top of the open end of bottle bottom.

Step 17.  Take Honey and Agave nectar (or one or the other)  and drizzle top side of bottle top.  Rotate and repeat until all drizzled.

Step 18.  Put bottle top upside down into bottle bottom.

Step 19.  Lightly drip honey (or agave) into center of top so it drips into the water in the bottom, then wiggle it so a few drops, no more or what's the point of going into to  the death trap, just touch the tape (or wall by opening of bottle mouth).

Step 20.  Tape the upside down top to the right side up bottom.  Around and around, until it's secured.

And there you go.  A wasp trap (or any flying stinging cruel thing).

Untape once a week (or when more than a couple of carcasses are bobbing around, but no more than a week) and dump the boogers down the toilet.  Refill, rebait, retape, reuse! *11. through *15 are for making this with a juice bottle because the openings are so big.  So, if you use a 2 liter, you save yourself some steps.  But I wasn't about to drink pop just to make a bug trap when I had perfectly good juice bottles to use.  It gets sticky, but it's fun and kids LOVE to help make this.  They feel empowered against the swarming masses.  All told, this took me maybe 15 minutes to make 2 of them.  It's quick and easy and best of all...  no bug spray!


Here's one on the back porch

and one on the front.

I'll let you know how they work.  Hopefully they will.  Everything said to use a green colored pop bottle, but I'm a non-conformist.  Lol.  But right now, it's like my own little Dumbo feather.  I'm not afraid of my porch today.  :)

On another note...  (but since we're talking about flying stinging things) I found a local source for raw honey today.  Guess who has two thumbs and is going to start treating her allergies all naturally?  This girl! I'll have a whole other blog post about that.

So, our baby step today is chemical free pest control.  I'm looking up more stuff for ants for this weekend.  I will not have my yard over run by carpenter ants this year.  You don't have to eliminate every bug all naturally.  Just try one thing to get rid of one pest.  Then try another, then another.  But one step at a time makes it a much less daunting task!

I wonder what I can do to spiders.... *evil laugh*