I have seen my bees fighting off yellow jackets near the entrances for the past couple days, usually just a couple at a time. It is my understanding they want the larvae. I actually sawa YJ kill a gaurd bee, but also saw 2 YJs killed by guards. (YEA!)
Steps I have taken; 1- Reducing entrance, using robber screen. 2- Add yellow jacket traps in the yard. 3- Take any opportunity to stomp every YJ I can.
Any other steps I should take?
Thanks
The yellow jacket traps really worked for me one summer when mobs of yellow jackets were overwhelming my bees. There were numerous gangs of YJ's rolling around on the ground with the bees. The traps should work. I hung 4 traps about 10 feet from my 4 hives that year.
Thanks Annette. Another trip to the BigBox for traps is in order.
A wad of raw hamburger meat laced with aspertame will help kill yj.
A can of tuna with a little frontline will also do the job. They take it back to the nest.
Here is an old post:
Before I became a Beekeeper this year I waged all out war on Yellow Jackets. I had several underground nests in my yard. I read a researcher in CA found that Frontline dog & cat flea killer (1-2 drops to a can of cat food or tuna) will kill the nest by the foragers taking baited meat back to the nest where they feed the brood. I tried the method a year & half ago and I have not had a yellow Jacket problem since. I would only do this towards the middle or end of summer because thats when the YJ's are searching for meat more than sweets. To keep local pets and critters from getting the baited meat I placed the can in a birdgage to allow the YJ's in and out.
I tried the store bought traps and they captured a lot of yellows jackets but just like honeybees the YJ's kept putting out new foragers. Hope it helps
I'm using a couple commercial traps and trying Fat Bee Man's home made style, both work at trapping the foragers. Now I do like the meat bait ideas to kill the nest. This time of year is just right for that concept, so I will add that to my counter-attack tactics. It seems I have more YJs than usual this year.
I had a bad case of those pests last year. I'll file that frontline tidbit away if it happens again.
This year I had the YJ traps out by mid-May. I caught at least a dozen queens. Each YJ queen killed in May-June wipes out an entire nest.