Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Opportunists

This is the lower right corner of the front storm door. While I was painting and you can see a bit of an oops on the house there, I had to fend off yellow jackets. There seemed to be roughly 3-4 always swarming around the front of the house. I checked the mailbox, where they had started to build a nest. Nothing. I checked the front light where I'd removed a nest in late winter which I discovered when I had to change the light bulb. Nothing. Then I noticed they were flying into the door.

There is a "hole", for lack of a better description, an opening where the bottom gold part is attached to the door. They have set up housekeeping inside the bottom of the door. This is not good. I'll have wasps in the house at some point, plus, I need to paint the threshold which becomes dangerous with wasps flying around. As I was painting under the edge of the house, I heard a low humming sound. There were two wasps sitting at the entrance fanning their wings. I know bees do that to keep the hive a certain temperature. I'm betting that's what those wasps were doing, too.

Right now, I'm out of wasp killer. There's none to be had in the house. I also can't remember when wasps are at their least active. Is it early morning or late evening? At the end of the month, when I do the monthly grocery shopping, I'll get wasp killer and hose the area down. Then, I'll cover the end with a small piece of duct tape. They will have to go elsewhere. Then I can finish painting the threshold.

You really do have to stay on top of wasp nests. I've had them start to build a nest under deck corners and under the hand rails on the front steps. I remember the basketball sized nest we found in the tree to the northwest of the house when Carole was in 8th grade. That was very interesting, to see all the layers. If they would build their nests somewhere else, I wouldn't kill them. But, I had a cat who was allergic to wasp stings and it was scary when he would get stung. I don't want to find out either one of my girls has the same problem.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

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