Pest Control Community

We have been receiving a lot of bees and wasps calls lately and I wanted to touch on what is happening right now in stinging insect world. In the fall of last year, the wasps mated and the pregnant future queens abandoned their nests and found a nice warm spot to stay for the winter in order to survive. A lot of times they find areas like behind siding, inside chimneys, or other sheltered areas where the heat from our homes provides them shelter. When the spring comes and the warmer temperatures come back, the pregnant queens emerge from their hiding spots and start to look for a nice spot to build a nest. This generates a lot of phone calls to pest control companies because they may be flying around the house on the exterior or even inside the house via the chimney. Unfortunately, in most cases, there is no nesting site which can be treated because the queens have not started to build a nest yet. Most of the stinging insects seen flying around a home this time of year represent a future colony. We can treat carpenter bee holes now, but yellow jackets, hornets, paper wasps, and other social insects have not developed nests yet. Once the queen finds a place to build a nest, she will start the process. After some of the eggs hatch and the workers are born, they will take over building the nest from the queen and the nest will be built much faster. The best solution is to call American Pest Management and ask about a maintenance program which can be established to cover treating future nesting sites.

TAGS: bees, wasps, stinging insect, nests, colony, carpenter bee, yellow jackets, hornets, paper wasps, American Pest Management