What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

I hate these Wasps!!!

  • Thread starter FarmerDave
  • Start date
Ok lately I've been plagued with some black wasps that have been stuffing all if my pitcher plants with dead grass and grasshoppers, and it's really bothering me because I can no longer sit outside with my plants and watch them almost vcontinually capture insects, without getting a wasp in my face. Does any one have any advice for me? If so it would be greatly appriciated.
Thanks
 
My advice is to not get stung by wasps. ;)
Wish I could tell you what to do, but so far as I can tell, there isn't anything. The plants attract bugs. When wasps and other stinging insects come around my plants I just leave them alone and go about my business, and they go away after a while.
Best luck,
~Joe
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]they go away after a while.

Yesss, they go away.... For a very, very long time.
 
Hi Dave,
I'm afraid I don't know what you can do about the wasps accept get rid of your plants. I too have many wasp around my cp's, fortuniatly they don't seem to be very aggresive around my plants and I can go about my business taking care of my plants. Jack
 
Around here wasps just fly around the plants and suck up all the water. It's kinda annoying but they go about their business and completly ignore me so I don't care all that much.

If you really want to get rid of them follow one back to the nest then hit the nest with wasp killer.
 
That's the thing they live in the pitchers while they make the dead grass nests and then they move on to another pitcher.
 
Maybe fill the invaded pitchers with water? Then put a wasp catcher or wasp repellent around your plants.

-Ben
 
Wasp killer is very strong stuff, it will kill anything it touches so he would have to be very carefull around the plants. My best advise is to try to shoo them away for a second then move the plants inside for a few days.
 
  • #10
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Farmer Dave @ Aug. 08 2006,11:51)]Ok lately I've been plagued with some black wasps that have been stuffing all if my pitcher plants with dead grass and grasshoppers...
Dave, this sounds suspiciously like they are using your plants pitchers as ready made nurseries. Some wasps will sting their pray just enough to paralize them, stick them in a hole, lay an egg and plug the hole. The eggs hatch, eat the pray left in the hole with them, pupate into an adult, then dig or chew their way out to start the cycle over again.
 
  • #11
I opened up a pitcher before and What I saw were about 12 dead (or paralized) grasshoppers and about three larva so I'd say that you're probably right
 
  • #12
OK what you should do is shoo them away for a second then look in the traps and cut off the traps that have eggs in them. If you do that and move the plants inside for a few days the wasp should find another home and leave your plants alone.
 
  • #13
The problem is that about 90% of my pitchers are taken over, and every time I cut one infested trap off in two or three days another one is infested.
 
  • #14
It also seems that they really enjoy making nests in my alata x minor hybrid and my leucos which also happen to be two of my favorite, besides my Dana's Delight which lately seems to fill up it's pitchers with flies nearly to the rim then topple over. well back on the subject, I was thinking about using some orthene on them but I don't know where to get it.
 
  • #15
Orthene will not kill wasps. Orthene will only work if the insect is actually eating the plant. Its very effective on aphids and the like, but wasps are another story.

Personally I dont see what the problem is here.. the wasps are feeding your plants as well as their babies.. sounds like the perfect partnership to me.

Steve
 
  • #16
They don't feed the plants though they just clog it up and eventually all of my plants will belong to the wasps.
 
  • #17
Stuff a little cotton in the opening of the pitchers and wasps won't go in anymore. Of course other insects won't be able to either.
 
  • #18
This may be a (extremely) long shot but there is a colony of ants that live in one of my bogs and I've observed them attacking and killing pests. It's like a trade off, they get an unlimited amount of nectar and little bits and peices of bugs that hang out of my VFT traps in return for protecting the plants. I've never had to use any type of insecticide on that one bog but I have on my others.

I dont know how you could attract some ants to protect your plants but it has worked for me. They even take down paper wasps and other big insects. For the last few months I've been trying to get them to spread to my other bogs but no luck yet.
 
  • #19
Okay, but I have to warn you that ants, gnats, scale, and hornets are almost always the most commonly captured insects in my plant collection.
 
  • #20
Spray em with the hose an run over an STOMP em when they're flailing on the ground!
Or
Put out a plastic cup with a layer of honey at the bottom, when the wasp goes in to eat the honey, flip the cup and watch as the honey slowly suffocates the wasp...
Or
Spray them with spray glue, when they hit the ground, light em on fire(spray glues flammable)

These are all mean things me an my friends used to do to Bees, Wasps and Hornets when we were kids.. it works though!
 
Back
Top