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Originally posted by Kathryn W
Lemon juice/vinegar

They make honey dont they? And transfer pollen/seeds to help flowers grow

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Originally found in some random website
How to Tell a Bee From a Wasp?

Wasps are thinner, can be aggressive, and interested in food and garbage. Bees are generally plumper, mild mannered and interested in flowers, not your lunch or garbage can. School personnel need to be able to distinguish wasps from bees and need to be aware of the preferred nesting locations of different species of wasp. The chief pollinators of our food crops are domestic honeybees which have been hard hit in recent years by a combination of parasitic mites, disease, starvation caused by severe weather, and pesticide poisoning. Anyone attempting to control wasps with insecticides must make certain that bees will not contact the poisons.

Facts about yellow jackets and other wasps:

Hazards of wasps
Yellow jackets and other wasps are feared because they can sting humans. Unlike bees, female wasps can sting repeatedly. Most species of wasp will not sting unless provoked by a perceived threat to themselves or to their nest. Yellow jackets are an exception. They are aggressive by nature and become especially persistent when foraging for limited food at the end of the summer. Normal reactions to stings includes pain, redness, itching and swelling at the sting site. Ice, table salt, and products like Sting Kill® are helpful in managing the symptoms. Symptoms can occur immediately after a sting, or may take longer to appear. They last for several hours. People who are hypersensitive have some or all of these

Symptoms:
þ Difficulty breathing, caused by swelling of the air passages. Shortness of
breath, wheezing and a sensation of tightness in the chest are symptoms.
þ Faintness and other shock symptoms. These symptoms are serious
and can result in death.
þ Nausea, headache and chest or abdominal pain can also be symptoms of
a hypersensitive reaction to a sting.

Most stings happen in the fall and late summer when the yellow jackets are most aggressive and competitive about foraging for food.

Benefits of wasps
Wasps are actually beneficial insects for humans and the environment. They are one of the major natural scavengers, and they eat insects such as flies and caterpillars that are often considered pests to humans. They should be left alone if they are in a location where they are not bothering people. Some wasps pollinate plants and crops, but most do not.


Wasp food
Yellow jackets aggressively forage for protein foods, such as meat, earlier in the summer. They prefer sweets (ripe fruit, plant nectar or other sugar solutions) as fall approaches. Worker wasps catch flies and caterpillars to feed the young. A primary area of conflict with humans is where food or garbage attracts scavenging species. Wasps drink water and will occasionally land on humans to drink sweat from their skin.

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Originally posted by Monster
C16Xe head is good for wasp stings

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Originally posted by Steve X16XE
Well i've been teasing them

There is a nest behind one of them breathing blocks at the front of my house. I've been spraying them with water through my hose pipe.

Well it was a laff

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Originally posted by Steve X16XE
So whats the best thing for their stings?

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Originally posted by Welsh Dan
My grandad always said fight fire with fire. Probably why he got kicked out of the Fire Service.

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