Today I did something stupid. REALLY stupid. See, we have had an abundance of hornets flying around our house these last few weeks and not thinking, I set a garbage bag that I intended to bring out to our main trash bin out onto our deck. I was only setting it out there for a few minutes, just long enough for me to place a new bag in and haul the other one downstairs and outside. Seems innocent enough, right?? Wrong!!
Uh, yeah, I'm not going near that thing.
To make matters worse, Mr. Serene is gone for the whole week! He's my bug guy. He takes care of stuff like this. Now, I have to pull up my big girl pants and fix this mess.
(Mr. Serene will be taking care of those nest when he gets back from his work trip!)
I ran to my favorite advice giving friend, Google. Turns out, you can make a trap yourself! Sweet!
The trap is pretty easy to put together with just a few household items.
If you don't have any of these things lying around, there are some great instructions out there for using a plastic bottle with the top cut off and inverted downward. Then, just follow the same instructions. Please be careful not to attract bees. They are pretty important to the ecosystem and not as pesky. To make sure you don't bait the bees, avoid using just sugar water. Include something they won't be attracted to like meat or vinegar.
Here's what I used:
- Mason jar
- meat (I used left over taco meat)
- water
- a funnel
- tape (I used electrical because it's all I could find)
If you don't have any of these things lying around, there are some great instructions out there for using a plastic bottle with the top cut off and inverted downward. Then, just follow the same instructions. Please be careful not to attract bees. They are pretty important to the ecosystem and not as pesky. To make sure you don't bait the bees, avoid using just sugar water. Include something they won't be attracted to like meat or vinegar.
Fill your jar (or bottle if that's what you used) with bait. I used taco meat mixed with water because this is the time of year that hornets and wasps are looking for protein for mating and hibernating throughout the winter. The water is to drown them.
place funnel with the spout facing downward into the bottle
Tape around the funnel and jar to block off any entrance that the hornet or wasp may sneak out of.
Place outside near the hornet nest and watch the magic happen!
place funnel with the spout facing downward into the bottle
Looks like I forgot the water in this one! I better fix that :)
Tape around the funnel and jar to block off any entrance that the hornet or wasp may sneak out of.
Look! It already brought some boys to the yard! (who needs milkshakes?!)
Place outside near the hornet nest and watch the magic happen!
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