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When Wasps, Hornets, and Bees Make Your Home Their Own · PEST PROSpectives

• 0:09
  Richard Piet: I'm Richard Piet.
• 0:09
  Richard Piet: This is PEST PROSpectives , the official the of the Pest Pros of Michigan and they are pros and we do talk to them about some of the things we are challenged with as it relates to pests around our environment.
• 0:24
  Richard Piet: One of those things may be the kind of pests that kind of show up at an inopportune time and they have wings and a stinger and all of a sudden we have an uninvited guest.
• 0:40
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorrentino is back from the Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 0:44
  Richard Piet: Guest Tony Sorrentino is back Pest Pros of Michigan, one of those pest pros with a pest prospective for us to think about.
• 0:51
  Tony Sorrentino: HiT ony, hey Richard, how are you doing?
• 0:52
  Tony Sorrentino: It's always a pleasure to be here.
• 0:54
  Richard Piet: I'm glad to be with you, and this really is one of the things that I personally am interested in, because as long as I've lived in Southwest Michigan coming up on 30 years almost, I don't know where that time went, but every house I've been in has had some kind of invisible to humans neon sign on the top that says stinging bugs, come on in, because they've been around in one form or another.
• 1:23
  Richard Piet: Some people will say I have a wasp problem, but what does that really mean to you when you hear that?
• 1:32
  Tony Sorrentino: Most people say wasp, but what they're really dealing with could be anything from paper wasps or yellow jackets or even bald-faced hornets.
• 1:39
  Tony Sorrentino: We have quite a variety of different types of communal insects.
• 1:44
  Tony Sorrentino: Eusocial is the entomological term.
• 1:47
  Richard Piet: Okay, yeah, so if they have a stinger, we're using a blanket word to describe them like wasps, I don't know, like Kleenex or something to describe tissues.
• 1:59
  Richard Piet: We do that, but one of those that you mentioned that I'm intrigued about is the paper wasp.
• 2:06
  Richard Piet: They're not made of paper.
• 2:07
  Richard Piet: I presume.
• 2:08
  Tony Sorrentino: No, they get their name because they chew up I was going to say masticate.
• 2:13
  Tony Sorrentino: They chew up the wood from your deck or the wood from your fence or from other structural building elements and they chew it up, they mix it with saliva and that's how they create the paper that makes their nests.
• 2:25
  Tony Sorrentino: Now they call them an umbrella wasps, they call them paper wasps, and there's a couple of different kinds that we deal with typically in Southwest Michigan.
• 2:33
  Tony Sorrentino: One is European.
• 2:35
  Tony Sorrentino: They're yellow and black, same type of thing.
• 2:38
  Tony Sorrentino: They'll have a little umbrella that they in the corner of your garage or at the at the side of one of your windows.
• 2:44
  Tony Sorrentino: Right there, seven to 10, maybe 15 on a big nest I've seen them big as a salad plate typically not super aggressive, unless you get rowdy with them and then, well, I mean, you wind up on the wrong end of the stinger and that hurts.
• 3:00
  Richard Piet: That's right.
• 3:01
  Richard Piet: Okay, so I get it.
• 3:01
  Richard Piet: Paper wasps Now.
• 3:02
  Richard Piet: That's right, okay, so I get it.
• 3:02
  Richard Piet: Paper wasps, now.
• 3:04
  Richard Piet: That's part of their nesting habit.
• 3:06
  Richard Piet: Looks like paper.
• 3:08
  Richard Piet: All right, let's talk about some others, like what we often refer to and have heard referred to as yellow jackets and you mentioned bald-faced hornets too.
• 3:19
  Richard Piet: Are they related somehow?
• 3:21
  Tony Sorrentino: yeah, so those are both aerial wasps, even though they're called bald-faced.
• 3:24
  Tony Sorrentino: So those are both aerial wasps.
• 3:24
  Tony Sorrentino: Even though they're called bald face hornets, they are aerial wasps, they are.
• 3:29
  Tony Sorrentino: Typically.
• 3:29
  Tony Sorrentino: What we deal with in Michigan is they are the most aggressive.
• 3:33
  Tony Sorrentino: They are big, they are white and black and they will have at the end of the season.
• 3:38
  Tony Sorrentino: I've I've seen bald face hornets nest bigger than a beach ball anywhere from 750 to 1500 active wasps and they're incredibly aggressive.
• 3:49
  Tony Sorrentino: So if you see one of these hanging from a bush or a low hanging tree, don't try to deal with it yourself.
• 3:55
  Tony Sorrentino: You're in danger.
• 3:57
  Tony Sorrentino: They go for your mouth and your eyes when they sting you.
• 4:02
  Tony Sorrentino: I've been in my bee suit and been trying to remediate and we're getting swarmed, but they're coming right at my eyes and they're coming in my mouth and then I read about them and they're just incredibly aggressive and that's danger.
• 4:13
  Tony Sorrentino: So if you see one of those, they're usually tree nesting and they'll put them up way high up in a tree or on a telephone pole.
• 4:21
  Tony Sorrentino: They can build them on houses.
• 4:23
  Tony Sorrentino: So if you see a paper ball coming off the side of your house, that could be either yellow jackets or bald-faced hornets.
• 4:30
  Tony Sorrentino: Now, with yellow jackets they're not always exposed nesters, they're not always an aerial nest.
• 4:36
  Tony Sorrentino: What we'll see is they'll be opportunistic void nesting yellow jackets, and those are the ones that are coming in and out of your soffit or out of your plumbing penetration, where it's going into the back of your house.
• 4:48
  Tony Sorrentino: Again, it's really dangerous because it's the same number as the bald-faced hornets, the aerial nests, but it's compacted into your wall void.
• 4:58
  Tony Sorrentino: So now we run the risk of having them chew through the drywall and make entry into the living space.
• 5:04
  Tony Sorrentino: Now we have a public health risk.
• 5:06
  Richard Piet: That's interesting you bring that up.
• 5:07
  Richard Piet: I saw one of those home improvement shows where someone bought a house to flip and they'd done that.
• 5:15
  Richard Piet: They were in the house already so they knew they were somewhere.
• 5:19
  Richard Piet: And it was just as you described.
• 5:21
  Richard Piet: They were behind the drywall and luckily those folks have had some experience with this before, so they knew what they were up against and they called in a pro like you to handle that.
• 5:33
  Richard Piet: But right, if you see a few, there's probably a bunch more.
• 5:39
  Tony Sorrentino: I look for a flight path.
• 5:41
  Tony Sorrentino: You'll see them leaving and they'll see them returning, because that's what they do all day is they're building nests.
• 5:46
  Tony Sorrentino: They're out foraging and chewing up wood and collecting provisions for the larval stages and making sure that everybody's good, you know.
• 5:56
  Tony Sorrentino: So they're in and out all day.
• 5:58
  Tony Sorrentino: So you'll see that people.
• 6:01
  Tony Sorrentino: That's usually their first indication that they have a void nest or something that's not fully exposed.
• 6:08
  Richard Piet: Back and forth a lot.
• 6:09
  Richard Piet: At first, when you said flight path, I thought we were talking about like O'Hare Airport or something, but kind of it's similar though it's similar.
• 6:17
  Tony Sorrentino: You're watching them take off and you're watching them come in.
• 6:20
  Richard Piet: Okay, there are also, I guess, what we feel a little bit more warmly about.
• 6:26
  Richard Piet: When we talk about stinging insects, and that's bumblebees and honeybees, we sort of have a soft spot for them, but they have stingers too, don't forget they do, and so with bumblebees, they can be void, nesting where they're going to find an opportunity, a gap, a crack, a crevice.
• 6:44
  Tony Sorrentino: So in cases like that, there's not a lot that we can do.
• 6:47
  Tony Sorrentino: With honeybees, though.
• 6:54
  Tony Sorrentino: Honeybees are protected, honeybees are pollinators.
• 6:57
  Tony Sorrentino: We need to do everything we can to help protect the honeybees, so we will do more With bumblebees.
• 7:01
  Tony Sorrentino: It sucks.
• 7:02
  Tony Sorrentino: It sucks, but it's not an ethical or moral concern about killing bumblebees.
• 7:07
  Tony Sorrentino: Some of them are endangered, but when it comes to a sting situation where they're living in someone's house or they're causing a threat of damage, disease or discomfort, those are what we call critical pests.
• 7:21
  Tony Sorrentino: They can cause extreme discomfort or a public health risk.
• 7:25
  Tony Sorrentino: With honeybees, though, we've done extractions and removed upwards of 200 pounds of viable honey from the ceiling of five years.
• 7:35
  Tony Sorrentino: They were comfy.
• 7:36
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, they loved it.
• 7:37
  Tony Sorrentino: It was the perfect condition.
• 7:38
  Tony Sorrentino: There was nothing messing with them, there was no predators, nobody to take their precious honey.
• 7:54
  Richard Piet: Yeah, wow, and we see that a lot too.
• 7:57
  Richard Piet: And again, if you watch some of these home improvement shows, you'll see some of that where they'll bring someone in to help remediate and move them, which you know they get the smoke out and all that kind of stuff which helps calm them and it's fascinating to watch and also great to get them out of your way.
• 8:18
  Richard Piet: I suppose Also on the list of stinging insects is something called solitary wasps and carpenter bees.
• 8:26
  Richard Piet: Are they similar?
• 8:28
  Tony Sorrentino: so the solitary wasps, those are the great, big, gigantic wasps that you see digging holes in your lawn.
• 8:35
  Tony Sorrentino: Those are the, those are the cicada killers, and they catch that.
• 8:38
  Tony Sorrentino: I I've got them on video carrying a full-grown cicada and dragging it into the hole to feed their larval stages as they, as they hatch and mature.
• 8:47
  Tony Sorrentino: There's another one called mud dauber, that is, they build the.
• 8:52
  Tony Sorrentino: It looks like a stove pipe, like organ pipes on the side of your brick or on your outside spaces.
• 8:58
  Tony Sorrentino: It's hard, it's like hardened mud.
• 9:00
  Tony Sorrentino: It's the same type of concept as what the paper wasps do, but they do it with mud, and so they build these intricate stove pipes where they put their larval stage, and then they will stun a spider or another large insect and put it in there with their baby and then seal it up, and next thing, you know, so those return year after year, though, and while they're not typically aggressive, they have stingers and some people are allergic.
• 9:28
  Tony Sorrentino: So if it's necessary to get ahold of a professional about it something that we do now carpenter bees cause structural damage.
• 9:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, they chew your exposed wood surfaces.
• 9:37
  Tony Sorrentino: You can fill in the holes and you can stain.
• 9:40
  Tony Sorrentino: You can call pest control, we can come out.
• 9:43
  Tony Sorrentino: It's all.
• 9:44
  Tony Sorrentino: Pest issues are controllable.
• 9:45
  Tony Sorrentino: We just got to figure out what the best plan moving forward is, the best plan of action.
• 9:51
  Richard Piet: Well, I can relate to the carpenter bee thing.
• 9:54
  Richard Piet: I years ago had those in a deck on a house that I owned and and did end up calling a professional.
• 10:00
  Richard Piet: They're kind of aggressive, but they don't sting much, do they, the males?
• 10:06
  Tony Sorrentino: can't.
• 10:07
  Tony Sorrentino: They're not equipped for it.
• 10:09
  Tony Sorrentino: Male paper wasps can't either.
• 10:10
  Tony Sorrentino: But good luck figuring out which one's which without a microscope.
• 10:15
  Richard Piet: Yeah, well, I do remember the carpenter bees are large and they are aggressive in that they are kind of dive-bombing you and again, you don't know whether you're going to get stung or not.
• 10:26
  Richard Piet: Yeah, you can't stop and say, excuse me, do you have a stinger?
• 10:29
  Richard Piet: They're not going to answer you, they're just going to come after you.
• 10:32
  Richard Piet: And I do recall that, and I do recall bringing in a professional to deal with it, because I was not, I was not equipped.
• 10:39
  Richard Piet: All right, so prevention, treatment.
• 10:42
  Richard Piet: When somebody says I have stinging insects, what's your thought?
• 10:48
  Tony Sorrentino: Typically my first thought, because so it's very common to misidentify Everyone calls them bees or everyone calls them wasps.
• 10:56
  Tony Sorrentino: I've got bees, I've got wasps.
• 10:57
  Tony Sorrentino: We put a blanket on it, stinging insects, if it's necessary.
• 11:02
  Tony Sorrentino: Well, I don't know what it is, I don't want to get close enough to it, that's okay.
• 11:06
  Tony Sorrentino: That's okay.
• 11:07
  Tony Sorrentino: That's why we'll offer that free evaluation for general pest control services.
• 11:11
  Tony Sorrentino: We'll come out, we'll figure out exactly what's happening.
• 11:15
  Tony Sorrentino: If we need to do an intervention and call a local beekeeper and have someone come out and collect this, if we need to open up a wall void or open up a wall cavity and safely remove, humanely, effectively transfer the the colony and and secure the honey, or if it's something more nefarious you know, if it's yellow jackets, we'll suit up and go and cut a hole in the wall and decimate everything.
• 11:39
  Richard Piet: That's quite the job.
• 11:40
  Richard Piet: That reminds me of another occasion, different house.
• 11:43
  Richard Piet: I think they were yellow jackets under the siding Yep, and I didn't know the extent of it until the siding was being replaced.
• 11:54
  Tony Sorrentino: And I've seen that too.
• 11:55
  Tony Sorrentino: I've seen huge void-nesting yellow jacket nests in attic spaces where they had gotten in through the gable vent and it's big.
• 12:05
  Tony Sorrentino: It spreads like, like I told you, it's spread out in a corner.
• 12:08
  Tony Sorrentino: It looks like something melted there.
• 12:09
  Tony Sorrentino: You know, the good thing about Michigan and this is high five for Michigan and it's it's cold, cold winters is the Queens are the only ones that make it through the winter.
• 12:18
  Tony Sorrentino: So that's why in Southern states they deal with, you know, ongoing this.
• 12:23
  Tony Sorrentino: This nest has been here for 25 years.
• 12:25
  Tony Sorrentino: Yes, michigan's not going to have that.
• 12:28
  Tony Sorrentino: So by the time fall comes around, the rest of the, the workers and the hives not honeybees, but your yellow jackets, your bald face hornets I'm not sure about bumblebees, I would need to look into that but the wasps and hornets, the workers, die off at the end of the season.
• 12:45
  Tony Sorrentino: So most times, if you can wait it out, you can safely remove a nest after the first couple of freezes.
• 12:51
  Tony Sorrentino: Oh interesting, yeah, that's a good tip.
• 12:55
  Richard Piet: Well, you almost feel sorry for that queen.
• 12:57
  Richard Piet: She loses the whole worker team over the winter.
• 13:00
  Richard Piet: But I think if you linger on long enough, you don't feel sorry for very long.
• 13:05
  Tony Sorrentino: She just rests, she hangs out, and then she starts all over in the spring.
• 13:09
  Tony Sorrentino: And then we start all over in the spring.
• 13:12
  Richard Piet: Yeah, that's right, and part of that is a good point.
• 13:15
  Richard Piet: The pest pros of Michigan are going to come and take a look and analyze exactly what the situation is and figure out what to do.
• 13:24
  Richard Piet: Isn't that right?
• 13:25
  Tony Sorrentino: Absolutely.
• 13:25
  Tony Sorrentino: Our pest inspections or any type of evaluation is always going to be no charge for a homeowner or a resident.
• 13:34
  Tony Sorrentino: We're going to come out, we're going to identify, we're going to figure out what the plan of action is and, with your approval, we're going to execute on that and we don't miss.
• 13:44
  Richard Piet: All right, we don't miss.
• 13:45
  Richard Piet: You heard that.
• 13:46
  Richard Piet: Hold me to it.
• 13:47
  Richard Piet: We will.
• 13:49
  Richard Piet: I saw a reel on Facebook and it said something like the graphics said something like the easiest way to remove a wasp nest.
• 13:58
  Richard Piet: And somebody had like a beaker with gasoline in it and they reached up and put it under this small nest and almost instantly they all fell out and dropped into the gasoline and the inference was your problem was solved.
• 14:14
  Richard Piet: I don't know if I'd want to get that close to it first of all.
• 14:19
  Tony Sorrentino: first of all, you're holding a cup of gas and all those things sting Like.
• 14:23
  Tony Sorrentino: It is factually accurate the vapors from the petroleum distillate of gasoline will harm the sphericals of the wasps or Hornets and it will cause them to drop dead.
• 14:36
  Tony Sorrentino: It's so dangerous.
• 14:40
  Richard Piet: But it's a little risky.
• 14:41
  Richard Piet: Yeah, in the example they used, it was relatively small.
• 14:47
  Tony Sorrentino: Right.
• 14:47
  Tony Sorrentino: Nevertheless, I saw it, it's a man.
• 14:50
  Richard Piet: I don't know.
• 14:51
  Richard Piet: Yeah, it's a risk, isn't it All right, don't take the risk.
• 14:56
  Richard Piet: Folks Call a professional.
• 14:57
  Richard Piet: Yeah, tony and his crew at Pest Pros of Michigan can help, and that's what we talk about here PEST PROSpectives.
• 15:06
  Richard Piet: In fact, have a look at some of these other episodes that we've talked about.
• 15:14
  Richard Piet: Click on the ones that apply to you.
• 15:15
  Richard Piet: Some of them apply to a lot of you, because we talk about integrated pest management and some other things that really solidify the approach that Tony is talking about and Amber as well on many of these episodes, and we invite you to subscribe to PEST PROSpectives wherever you get podcasts.
• 15:32
  Richard Piet: Tony, we'll talk again.
• 15:34
  Richard Piet: Thanks, Richard.