PEST PROSpectives

When Wasps, Hornets, and Bees Make Your Home Their Own

• Pest Pros of Michigan

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The fear of stinging insects is real. You may have waited months and months to get out in your outdoor living sanctuary to enjoy the warm weather. Then, boom! The uninvited buzzing of bees, wasps and hornets around your space.

In this episode of PEST PROSpectives, Associate Certified Entomologist Tony Sorrentino returns to discuss the various stinging insects Michigan homeowners encounter and how to safely address these potentially dangerous pests.

Call Pest Pros of Michigan for a free evaluation of any stinging insect situation to determine the safest and most effective treatment approach for your specific needs.

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Pest Pros of Michigan

PEST PROSpectives is a Livemic Communications production.

Richard Piet:

I'm 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. 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. Tony Sorrentino is back from the Pest Pros of Michigan. Guest Tony Sorrentino is back Pest Pros of Michigan, one of those pest pros with a pest prospective for us to think about.

Tony Sorrentino:

HiT ony, hey Richard, how are you doing? It's always a pleasure to be here.

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. Some people will say I have a wasp problem, but what does that really mean to you when you hear that?

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. We have quite a variety of different types of communal insects. Eusocial is the entomological term.

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. We do that, but one of those that you mentioned that I'm intrigued about is the paper wasp. They're not made of paper. I presume.

Tony Sorrentino:

No, they get their name because they chew up I was going to say masticate. 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. 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. One is European. They're yellow and black, same type of thing. 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. 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.

Richard Piet:

That's right. Okay, so I get it. Paper wasps Now. That's right, okay, so I get it. Paper wasps, now. That's part of their nesting habit. Looks like paper. 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. Are they related somehow?

Tony Sorrentino:

yeah, so those are both aerial wasps, even though they're called bald-faced. So those are both aerial wasps. Even though they're called bald face hornets, they are aerial wasps, they are. Typically. What we deal with in Michigan is they are the most aggressive. They are big, they are white and black and they will have at the end of the season. 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.

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. You're in danger. They go for your mouth and your eyes when they sting you. 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. 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.

Tony Sorrentino:

They can build them on houses. So if you see a paper ball coming off the side of your house, that could be either yellow jackets or bald-faced hornets. Now, with yellow jackets they're not always exposed nesters, they're not always an aerial nest. 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. 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. So now we run the risk of having them chew through the drywall and make entry into the living space. Now we have a public health risk.

Richard Piet:

That's interesting you bring that up. I saw one of those home improvement shows where someone bought a house to flip and they'd done that. They were in the house already so they knew they were somewhere. And it was just as you described. 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. But right, if you see a few, there's probably a bunch more.

Tony Sorrentino:

I look for a flight path. You'll see them leaving and they'll see them returning, because that's what they do all day is they're building nests. They're out foraging and chewing up wood and collecting provisions for the larval stages and making sure that everybody's good, you know. So they're in and out all day. So you'll see that people. That's usually their first indication that they have a void nest or something that's not fully exposed.

Richard Piet:

Back and forth a lot. 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.

Tony Sorrentino:

You're watching them take off and you're watching them come in.

Richard Piet:

Okay, there are also, I guess, what we feel a little bit more warmly about. 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.

Tony Sorrentino:

So in cases like that, there's not a lot that we can do. With honeybees, though. Honeybees are protected, honeybees are pollinators. We need to do everything we can to help protect the honeybees, so we will do more With bumblebees. It sucks. It sucks, but it's not an ethical or moral concern about killing bumblebees. 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. They can cause extreme discomfort or a public health risk. With honeybees, though, we've done extractions and removed upwards of 200 pounds of viable honey from the ceiling of five years. They were comfy. Yeah, they loved it. It was the perfect condition. There was nothing messing with them, there was no predators, nobody to take their precious honey.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, wow, and we see that a lot too. 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. I suppose Also on the list of stinging insects is something called solitary wasps and carpenter bees. Are they similar?

Tony Sorrentino:

so the solitary wasps, those are the great, big, gigantic wasps that you see digging holes in your lawn. Those are the, those are the cicada killers, and they catch that. 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. There's another one called mud dauber, that is, they build the. It looks like a stove pipe, like organ pipes on the side of your brick or on your outside spaces. It's hard, it's like hardened mud. 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.

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. Yeah, they chew your exposed wood surfaces. You can fill in the holes and you can stain. You can call pest control, we can come out. It's all. Pest issues are controllable. We just got to figure out what the best plan moving forward is, the best plan of action.

Richard Piet:

Well, I can relate to the carpenter bee thing. I years ago had those in a deck on a house that I owned and and did end up calling a professional. They're kind of aggressive, but they don't sting much, do they, the males?

Tony Sorrentino:

can't. They're not equipped for it. Male paper wasps can't either. But good luck figuring out which one's which without a microscope.

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. Yeah, you can't stop and say, excuse me, do you have a stinger? They're not going to answer you, they're just going to come after you. 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. All right, so prevention, treatment. When somebody says I have stinging insects, what's your thought?

Tony Sorrentino:

Typically my first thought, because so it's very common to misidentify Everyone calls them bees or everyone calls them wasps. I've got bees, I've got wasps. We put a blanket on it, stinging insects, if it's necessary. Well, I don't know what it is, I don't want to get close enough to it, that's okay. That's okay. That's why we'll offer that free evaluation for general pest control services. We'll come out, we'll figure out exactly what's happening. 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.

Richard Piet:

That's quite the job. That reminds me of another occasion, different house. 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.

Tony Sorrentino:

And I've seen that too. 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. It spreads like, like I told you, it's spread out in a corner. It looks like something melted there. 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. So that's why in Southern states they deal with, you know, ongoing this. This nest has been here for 25 years. Yes, michigan's not going to have that. 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. So most times, if you can wait it out, you can safely remove a nest after the first couple of freezes. Oh interesting, yeah, that's a good tip.

Richard Piet:

Well, you almost feel sorry for that queen. She loses the whole worker team over the winter. But I think if you linger on long enough, you don't feel sorry for very long.

Tony Sorrentino:

She just rests, she hangs out, and then she starts all over in the spring. And then we start all over in the spring.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, that's right, and part of that is a good point. 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. Isn't that right?

Tony Sorrentino:

Absolutely. Our pest inspections or any type of evaluation is always going to be no charge for a homeowner or a resident. 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.

Richard Piet:

All right, we don't miss. You heard that. Hold me to it. We will. I saw a reel on Facebook and it said something like the graphics said something like the easiest way to remove a wasp nest. 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. I don't know if I'd want to get that close to it first of all.

Tony Sorrentino:

first of all, you're holding a cup of gas and all those things sting Like. 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. It's so dangerous.

Richard Piet:

But it's a little risky. Yeah, in the example they used, it was relatively small.

Tony Sorrentino:

Right. Nevertheless, I saw it, it's a man.

Richard Piet:

I don't know. Yeah, it's a risk, isn't it All right, don't take the risk. Folks Call a professional. Yeah, tony and his crew at Pest Pros of Michigan can help, and that's what we talk about here PEST PROSpectives. In fact, have a look at some of these other episodes that we've talked about. Click on the ones that apply to you. 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. Tony, we'll talk again. Thanks, Richard.