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Good afternoon.
This is Ben Sell with Ben’s pest control. And thank you for joining us today where the Ben’s Pest Control podcast. Today we’ll be talking about wasps. Now in Florida, the wasp we have what I consider to be a few kinds of wasp, we have paper wasp, which a lot of people are familiar with that make the paper almost look like honeycomb nests. And they can range from smaller wasps that seem to be very aggressive to some pretty big wasps that make those paper nests.
And those paper nest normally for most people are pretty small when they find them. But if the paper wasps are let go for an extended period of time, they can make some very large the size of almost a basketball or bigger size on nest. The next species of wasp we deal with in Florida is the mud dabber. Now the mud dabber doesn’t seem to be in my opinion, an extremely important wasp for most people to deal with they they’re mostly solitary, they make a mud nest which sticks the house and it’s it’s kind of gross, it’s it’s kind of disgusting, it’s very hard to get off. And, but for the most part, they don’t really bother people. It’s just a matter of getting the the dirt off of your house. And then in Florida, we do have yellow jackets. They don’t seem to be extremely common. But there have been a few cases of yellow jackets over the years in Florida. I remember when I was working in Tampa, there had been a very large yellow jacket. That’s they said almost the size of Volkswagen that built underground. And it was quite a sad story. The Yellow Jackets had actually injured a dog, the dog was in pretty bad shape because the yellow jackets but the yellow jackets aren’t extremely, extremely common. So what I want to talk about today are the paper wasps those are the most common wasps that we deal with. And they’re the ones th
at most people in Florida get stung by. And they are the ones that probably cause the most pain to the average person. So as most people know, paper wasps for the most part do seem to like to build around the eaves. A lot of people get them by their front doors, up under the soffits. They can be by garage doors in the corners. Some people I know they’ll have almost rounded, decorative garage doors where the stucco is actually rounded on the corners on the upper right left and there can be a void behind that between those rounded edges and the garage doors. A
nd that can be a perfectly hidden place for for the wasp nest to build and be in and establish themselves. Those are most of the places that everybody is kind of aware of, at least for the most part, the people that liv
e in Florida. But what about the uncommon places. I tell people all the time, things like especially wood fences. Wood fences normally have a three layer wood posts that run parallel to the ground, usually one closest to the ground, a middle one and then an upper one that the wood slats are then attached to. And those parallel bars especially where they meet the main posts, where they sit and the wood is then slanted behind it. It creates a hidden pocket. They love to build nests around gates. Pretty much anything that that’s parallel to the ground that’s protected from the weather. paper wasps like the building. I tell people, I had a person who had a camper once and the camper had a hollow rail in it. And they had built in that rail. A friend of mine also had a trailer and they they had the trailer that sat for an extended period of time they actually built in the wheel wells of the trailer they built nests
. One of our clients in Vero Beach has a semi trailer that they park and they keep stuff loaded in and the semi trailer has a hollow bumper. And because it doesn’t move the paper wasps love to build in that huddle bumper. What you’re going to notice is it’s almost anything that’s dark, is protected from the environment. And that’s where the wasps . One of the other places we’ve commonly seen them is for people who have playgrounds, playgrounds need to be inspected on a regular basis for paper wasps .
When it comes to playgrounds, one of the things we see especially is for little toddlers they have these plastic sleeves Usually they’re blue held on by yellow rope swings that the parents will get. And those swings, they have grooves underneath them and the paper wasps will commonly build nests up underneath the swing. So as a parent, can you imagine putting your toddler into the swing and their legs are dangling down and you go to swing them, and all sudden your toddler gets tore up by wasps , if the loss are aggressive, now your
toddler strapped in, you’ve got to find the time to undo the safety belt, get your child out of the swing, and then deal with the wasps that then hurt your child. I mean, it is a bad situation in that regard. Along with those playgrounds, some of the playgrounds like my kids had a playground that had a fort in it. And the fort usually has a roof and underneath that roof, you’ve got areas where wasps look to build, in our situation, that fort was built up about four feet off the ground. And then underneath that there was a covered area and where that covered area was underneath, there’s places that the wasps lks just absolutely love to make nests. So when it comes to our children, especially, you’ve got to be very concerned and protective. And check those areas on a regular basis. Or if you have pest control, make sure you check them or have I’m sorry, make sure you have them check them. Because, you know, it’s probably the least they can do as part of your service. I know we’ve done it for clients before. Just go and check the playground over there. I’m trying to make sure that there’s nothing there that can hurt the child
ren. Another thing that we run into when it comes to wasps is that the loss, especially the little ones, the little ones like seem to be the ones with the really bad attitudes. I have noticed many times in like 25 years that I’ve been stung, the little ones will be very aggressive and aggressively defend around their nest, the bigger they are a little less worrisome until the nest gets big. Once the nest gets big, then they protect pretty aggressively all of the areas around their nest. So if you’re wondering what you can do as a homeowner, I tell people most of the hardware store sell wasps freeze you can go get yourself a can. I do suggest being very careful wasp breeze is designed to spray from above, I believe most can say 10 to 20 feet. So the product that comes out comes out at a very high volume. Obviously know what you’re spraying at what’s around it. Don’t spray it your children, don’t spray it your pets
. Make sure you’re in a safe place that when you do spray it you can hit the nest and hopefully kill them and get away before they come after you. Always know that you hopefully are not upwind. You never want to spray a chemical of wind and have it come back at you. Otherwise, if this is something that you really don’t want to tackle yourself for, you know, some people are allergic and deathly allergic to these things. Please feel free to give Ben’s pest control a call. We’ll be happy to come up and do a free inspection free evaluation. Any time for you you can give us a call at 772-878-1972 or you can check out our website at Benpest.biz. Thank you and have a great day
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
