DIY Yellow Jacket Bottle Trap

This is my first instructable, so any feedback is greatly appreciated!  After discovering a yellow jacket ground nest near our front door a few days ago, I decided to look up ways to get rid of these mean insects without the pesticides. We have various wildlife and friendly insects in our yard, so I try to avoid pesticides.  A quick Google search resulted in a few solutions to my problem and this is the one I chose.  This method was super simple, pesticide free, eco safe and VERY effective.  Friends and family were pretty amazed at the results as was I!  So let's get started!

Step 1: What You Need

Here are the “tools” needed: wine (they prefer red to white), a clean water or soda bottle, a bread knife or scissors, and dishwashing liquid.  First, cut off the top quarter or third of the bottle. Add about ½ “ of wine and about two drops of dishwashing liquid.  Now flip that top over to make a funnel and place it snuggly back into bottle.  You are done!  See how easy that was?

Comments

[nickolaiisoe]

Nasty friends got there

[thebeatonpath]

Nasty indeed. Hoping they found another yard to invade this year.

[RangerJ]

Very good instructable. I plan to file it for next summer. Thanks

[annschmech]

I also found a great source of information, when I'm completely stumped, is my local county extension office. They live for questions like bug id and plant id. I would also guess that if there's any university in the area, there's an entomologist who might be helpful. I've almost always found the academic sort to be helpful.

[taria]

I know this is old. like a year old, but I have a few questions. I haven't seen the underground wasp (thank god) but I do have those one that like to build the hives near windows and inside my wooden wind chimes you go to move them and out pop a few bees chasing you (always the best part). I personally hate bee's and they might sense that I hate them that's why they come at me. But can I use this as well for catching those little buggers and keep them way from my front door. I'm scared that they are going to sting my pup since she loves to chase things that fly (watch out for the butterfly's). They are the big black ones and sometimes they have red one them. (one chased me and I bashed my head cause I tripped and hit the sidewalk trying to get away from it..I know I'm a pansy, I hate bee's) I'm just tiered of having to make a run for the door, quickly open it and rush inside before they get in. Also my mother has bees that look like honey bee's, but I don't think they are because they are attracted to her porch, and they are always attracted to the dogs urine that's there. (Yes my mothers dogs are to lazy to go a foot further to the grass. yelping little dogs) even if we clean it, which is every other day, they are still there, usually in a group of 10 or so. She says to not worry about them but when your walking up to the house and trying to get in, there they are in your face..seriously, it's annoying. (Like I said I think they sense my fear) if they are honey bee's I don't I will be buying local honey anymore :) but would this work for them as well? if they aren't honey bee's that is.

Would cooking wine work? I don't drink wine, but I cook with the cooking sherry wine, (Its red that all I know) so would that work? and the dish soap, does it have to be a certain one or would any type work?

anyway, thanks for reading my sappy but true story of me hating bee's...I guess the time I got stung on the butt still lives in my brain...yay for butt stings!

[thebeatonpath]

I feel your pain! I would think cooking wine or sherry would work since it is smells similar to the wine. Any dish soap will do. Just a few drops. Without a photo, I'm not sure if your mom's problems are honey bees. Doesn't sound like typical honey bee behavior, but I'm no expert. You can do an internet search to try to identify the culprit. There are SO MANY different bees and wasps, plus I don't know where you live to help. Yours sound like red wasps (equally nasty buggers), but they sound pretty aggressive. Could you get a photo from the safety of the indoors? I would love to see what you are up against and help with a solution if this one does not work. Butt stings stink, but these stung me in the back of the head and stung my 9 year old, hence when the war began. The queen is still in a jar of alcohol on the window sill just to remind me that we won this round! haha

[taria]

I would have to wait til summer time cause that's when they are out. right now it's t cold. I live in Illinois. The ones that go into my wind chimes are really small one that look like wasps but are tannish in color. does that make sense? and the ones that are at my mothers house are shaped like honey bee's the oval type shape and are about maybe a half an inch long?

to be honest with you I don't like standing that close to them to get a photo. I might have to set up my camera in video mode to get a shot of them.

[taria]

not a year old..sorry, my brain is soooooooo gone right now, this is what happens when you have a cold. you loose all sense of knowledge.

[emp_cyttie]

THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!!!!! I'm searching for an opportunity to use this but know it's autumn, so I'm looking forward to using this next year!!! Thank you so much!

[thebeatonpath]

THANKS! Let's hope you never have to!

[paulhschulman]

I had yellow jackets--lots of them-- build a nest in the wall of the entryway to my house. The nest was behind a framed out opening. Having been stung more than once, I was afraid to enter the house there and worried that the mailman would get stung. I tried spraying but they were pretty inaccessible in the wall. So I tried this method, and caught a few dozen the first day. I noticed that they were coming in at a particular spot, so I taped the trap just below that spot. Then I taped around the opening of the nest to the top of the cut bottle so that they were funneled into the bottle--they had no other place to go. I checked the first evening and the bottle was so filled with yellow jacket bodies that there was no room for more. The bottle was filled up to the opening. I got a bigger bottle and that filled with bodies also. I found another entrance to the nest and did the same to that. I kept the traps up for about 2 weeks in case the queen and pupa were still alive. Now I have no more problem. I caught 500-1000, I would guess. I've recommended this method to lots of friends.

[thebeatonpath]

That is AMAZING! Great job!

[karl w becker]

Hi, I have seen a very elegent blown glass version in Sweden but very expensive. This very cool, my only Question is will it kill honey bees? That would be a huge negative for me

[thebeatonpath]

No honey bees were attracted to this. I've heard they don't like vinegar, so wine is similar. We love honey bees, so I would never try to catch them.

[Dookster]

I used to do this as a child. You have to be carefull with this because wasps are really affected by alcohol in the wine and they get knocked out. but they can wake up again with a realy bad temper if they didn't drown. better make sure they're all really dead

[karl w becker]

Let's see- your hung over,wet and sitting in a pile of your dead brethern. Yah I would be pissed!

[kibukun]

So they're angry drunks I assume?

[thebeatonpath]

Actually happy drunks. Once in, they never come out! Hmmm, sounds like that song "Hotel California".....

[thebeatonpath]

Thanks for the advice! We left them in the bottles for a couple days with no movement, plus the critters starting eating them as snacks. There are still a few hanging on, but I'm hoping the fresh trap I put right in front of their hive last night will do the trick today. I see them flying around it right now. The only one I brought in was the queen and she is in a jar very much dead.

[askjerry]

Nicely done. I have never run into any ground wasps like that... just the paper wasps. I've lived in New jersey, Louisiana, and now Texas. Where was this?

[thebeatonpath]

Middle Tennessee

[askjerry]

Then I guess I was just lucky!

After you got the queen did the problem dissipate or did you have to get the bug-spray and go all Medieval on them?

[thebeatonpath]

The verdict is out. A couple folks don't believe it is the queen, but instead a different type of wasp or a drone (male). I'm still figuring that one out because now is the time that new queens and drones are produced for next year's hives. That is why they are so active right now. May have been there all summer and never bothered us before. By the time this is over, I should have my Masters! HAHA On the verge of going Medieval! I added the glass bowl trick last night which set them off in the dark! I went inside not realizing they could find a way UNDER the bowl and then we started hearing them hit our kitchen windows because we had the lights on. Freaked us out. Personally, I believe these vicious ladies know what I've done and they are ticked! "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is right in this case!

[syates3]

Actually after looking over some diagrams that is a female Yellow jacket. http://www.termitechpest.com/images/pests/bee5.jpg The workers are much smaller about half the size and each type has a unique color pattern on there abdomen that makes them easy to identify. if you note on the second female pattern it matches perfectly to what you've displayed here for the large one. I cannot clearly see the smaller ones but it's safe to assume they are workers. I'm not sure where you live but that looks like a western yellow jacket or a hybrid yellow jacket.

[Javin007]

Indeed, what you have there is a nasty bugger called a "bell hornet."  Their stings are every bit as nasty as they look. 

I'm particularly interested in the fact that no honey bees were killed.  I have a problem with hornets eating the bees that I keep and I wonder if the bees are just simply not attracted to the fermented smell of the wine.  I'll have to experiment. 

Your results are amazing.  Great 'ible!

[thebeatonpath]

I believe the honey bees wouldn't be attracted to it because it is a lot like vinegar and they don't like that.

[Oldbear]

They release a phernome when attacked/hurt/etc and this brings others to defend... after a bit each of those traps would be covered in a nice "kill this" smell that gets wasps VERY mad... and causes the swarms.

[karl w becker]

That explains alot. Thank you.I like the idea of useing there instincts against them as oposed to poison.

[waterlubber]

I've only been stung once...strangely, those yellow jackets seem to "like" me. One landed on my nose, and then flew off (of course, I didn't move) Another time, one landed on my hand, and thinking it was a horsefly(those are almost as nasty), slapped it. Unharmed. Do you have use wine? Can't you just mix grape juice and alcohol?

[thebeatonpath]

Not sure if grape juice and alcohol would work. I've just used wine which works with fruit flies as well (this started because we had some indoor fruit flies who kept going to my hubby's wine glass).

[steelchef]

Thanks a bunch for sharing this. We have been struggling all summer to control these little buggers in a greenhouse. Amazingly, no one has been stubn, so far. 24 hours after installing one trap there are now only a few malingerers. A second bottle will probably take care of them.
Cheers!

[thebeatonpath]

I am so HAPPY to hear that!

[travw]

About 6 years ago (age 9) I was walking through the woods at my grandparents house. I was near an old stump that had been there for years and years that never had an issue. But all the sudden, I hear *bzzzzzzzzzz*. I had never been stung by anything before, but I figured any loud buzzing sound was bad news; so I turned around and sprinted towards my grandparent's house. I felt a bunch of them surround me and start to land on me, so I went all karate master, mid sprint. It got most of them off of me, but I still ended up being stung once on the back of my head. But worst of all, two, I repeat, TWO FREAKING YELLOW JACKETS FLEW UP MY NOSTRIL AND STUNG ME INSIDE MY NOSE. I don't even know why they would do that, but it happened. Luckily, I'm not allergic, but I didn't know that at the time. So, I was pretty much freaking out before I realized that I wasn't going to die.

Haven't been stung by anything since then, thankfully.

[thebeatonpath]

HOLY SMOKES! Up your nose?! That makes me feel faint. Once stung, you will never forget the pain. One lady who is 64 told me about when she was attacked by a swarm 59 years ago. The lymph nodes in the back of my head still ache from 6 days ago! I'm glad you are ok. I read the more you get stung, the more likely you are to develop an allergy.

[obaa]

Yes, the more you get stung, the more likely you are to develop an allergy. That unfortunately, is because the person has developed quite a lot of antibodies to the venom, that even the slightest trace of venom triggers a violent reaction. The person's immune system in effect goes into hyper-drive flooding the blood stream with more anti-venom/ antibodies than it can handle, attacking not just the proteins in the bee or wasp venom but also other harmless proteins in the body.

[thebeatonpath]

YIKES! Thanks for the clear explanation.

[jtmcdole]

I agree, this is a great instructible! I use to use tune, cooking oil (olive), and sevin dust; throw that in cheap Tupperware with holes drilled in it and hang it from a tree. Took longer to kill off a nest; I'll give this on a try!

[bdempsey1]

Had a mouse that would not stop building nests in my lawn tractor. One day I was working with the tractor & the mouse made a show. I managed to kill the mouse & went for the shovel just inside the shed to clean it up. By the time I got back (less than 1 minute) I could not see the mouse for the yellow jackets swarming it. Fresh blood is a good bait for the trap. That being said, you may try blood bait that is made for catfish. (Sporting goods stores have it)

[thebeatonpath]

That falls in line with their love of meat, especially in the spring. I read that they are carnivores. Scarey that they found that mouse that fast!

[VadimS]

I've seen meat used as bait, but it seem they like the wine almost as much, and chances are the alcohol actually kills them.

I rode a lawnmower over a large nest last summer, nothing like having a few dozen trying to get you.