Even though there are plenty of things that I love about the summertime, there are a few things about it that I wish I didn’t have to endure. Because although summer brings longer days, patio weather, and family vacations, it is also responsible for sunburns, oppressive temperatures, and of course, wasps.
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Wasps can be nuisance during most of the year, but they often don’t become a real problem until the late summer. That’s because late in the summer, wasp colonies stop breeding new workers and start focusing on food instead. Humans often have food that wasps want, so one thing leads to another, and someone ends up on the wrong end of a sting. (Wasps are very rude that way!)
So in order to help us all enjoy a wasp-free summer, I thought that today I would offer up some useful ways to get rid of wasps! With the help of these 7 tips, you can be sure that your house is driving wasps away instead of inviting them in! :-)
7 Simple Ways To Get Rid Of Wasps
1. Look For Nests
The first step to getting rid of wasps is making sure there aren’t any living in or around your home already. Take a few minutes to walk around the outside of your house, and look for holes, broken panels, and loose siding where wasps, yellow jackets, and hornets could build a nest. Make repairs to these areas ASAP.
If you discover a nest, you’ll have to spray it to kill the wasps. It’s best to do it in the early morning or late at night, and be sure to wear heavy clothing. Aim at the main opening, which is usually near the bottom of the nest. Spray a stead stream of the wasp spray for at least 10 seconds, then take refuge indoors. (If your attempt to get rid of them was unsuccessful, better to try again tomorrow!)
Bonus Tip: You can make a homemade wasp spray by adding 2 tablespoons of dish soap to 8 ounces of water. Soapy water clogs up the wasps’ breathing spores and kills them almost instantly.
2. Put Away Food
Don’t let wasps ruin your backyard barbecue! As soon as everyone’s done eating, take a few minutes to pack up any leftovers and put the food away. The sooner you get the food covered up, the less likely you are to have wasp, yellow jacket, and hornet problems. (Oh, and make sure to keep garbage cans covered too!)
3. Move Hummingbird Feeders
Hummingbirds love hummingbird feeders, but wasps do too! If you have a hummingbird feeder in your backyard, you may want to move it to a secluded area or bring it inside when you or your guests will be spending time out there.
4. Make A Decoy Nest
Wasps are very territorial, so if they see a nest near your home, it may deter them from building a nest nearby. You can take advantage of their territorial nature by making a simple decoy wasp nest!
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To make a fake nest to deter wasps, fill a paper bag with a couple of other wadded up paper bags. Tie the opening of the bag off with a rubber band, then hang it the decoy nest wherever wasps may be tempted to build.
5. Avoid Floral Scents
Avoid wearing bold floral scents when you’ll be spending time outside. This could include perfumes, body sprays, lotions, and other scented products. Floral scents can attract wasps, and no one wants to be a walking wasp magnet!
6. Plant These Plants
There are certain plants that wasps don’t like to hang around, so adding these plants to your yard can help keep wasps at bay. Consider planting the following wasp-deterring plants around your yard:
- Spearmint
- Thyme
- Eucalyptus
- Citronella
- Lemongrass
- Pennyroyal
7. Use Peppermint Oil
A 2013 study showed that peppermint essential oil had a repellent effect against yellow jackets and paper wasps.
You can take advantage of this effect by putting a few drops of peppermint oil on several cotton balls. Place the cotton balls around your patio, outdoor furniture, or wherever you spend time outside to keep wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets away.
Related: My Top 10 Favorite Uses For Peppermint Oil
Bonus Tip #1: Advice For Other Pests
Not every angry stinging insect is a wasp! Here’s some tips for handling other flying pests:
- Hornets – Some hornets build their nests in the ground. Take a walk around your yard to look for any holes or divots where hornets might be tempted to build a nest, then fill them up.
- Yellow Jackets – Yellow jackets are often mean and persistent, but resist the temptation to swat at them. (It will only make them more aggressive!)
- Mud Daubers – Mud daubers are very skinny in the center of their body, so it’s easy to pick them out. They’re not usually aggressive, and are normally only interested in stinging spiders to feed their babies.
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Bonus Tip #2: Avoid Wasp Traps
Some people suggest using sugar and vinegar as bait in a homemade wasp trap, but I don’t suggest it. You may catch the occasional wasp with one, but it makes more sense to put that time and effort applying the tips to get rid of wasps that I mentioned above.
Bonus Tip #3: Be Nice To Bees!
Bees are a bit hairy or fuzzy, which makes them pretty easy to tell apart from wasps, hornets, and other pests. If you spot a honey bee or bumble bee, leave him be! He’s doing important work as a pollinator and isn’t looking to hurt you. If you have a serious number of bees around your house or have spotted a hive somewhere, contact a local beekeeper and ask if they offer removal or relocation services.
What’s your best tip for dealing with wasps?
We occasionally get paper wasps building nests on or near our house. I never had a problem with them, and I read on line that they are not aggressive. I leave them alone. There’s a kind of wasp that lays its eggs on tomato horn worms (or tobacco horn), and thereby kills them. That’s a bonus. I just move the caterpillar and attached wasp larvae to a remote part of the yard and leave them to do their thing. The offspring can then carry on protecting my tomatoes from the caterpillars. Bees, of course, desperately need our help to protect… Read more »
I try to raise Monarchs every year and wasps are definitely not welcome around the caterpillers! OR the newly hatched butterflies for that matter! While I have NO trouble with killing the wasps (having been stung on numerous occasions!!) , I try to keep my yard butterfly friendly and do NOT want to discourage the bees! Does anyone know if the homemade spray would be detrimental to butterfly eggs or caterpillars? This is why so many things that will deter the pests are also unacceptable to the GOOD insects! Thanks!!
Wasps are also attracted to certain scents like natural gas, gasoline, propane etc, so be careful if you are using these say for your BBQ. They also seem to like the color yellow and if you have trouble with them near bird feeders, move the feeders more into the shade: the hummers don’t mind and the bees/wasps prefer to be in the sunlight.
Added comment. I went to a lecture on honey bees several years ago. The keeper suggest we all let a bit/small area of our yards go wild to attract bees (only). They’re becoming scarce due to loss of habitat and weed killers.
Hi, I’m going to buy the peppermint oil and I really hope it works as I was stung 2 years ago and went into anaphylactic shock. 911 and the whole 9 yards in the ED. I found the nest about 2 weeks LAter (SAW THEM BUZZING AROUND IT) in one of my hanging baskets, on the back porch(I had never been allergic before) and now I carry an Epi pen everywhere! I’d never been allergic before and it’s probably just wasps/ yellow jackets. So peppermint in all the baskets and planter on the porch
I wish all of the wasps would just turn into honeybees! Great tips for getting rid of them, Jill :D
Thank you for the tip about soapy water for deterring wasps. It is always with regret that I have to use the can of hornet spray on the nests that seem to get rebuilt every year. I hate shooting all those stinky chemicals out into the atmosphere! A little Dawn would not be anything near as harmful and I hope it works. PS I have heard the same sort of thing for ants in the kitchen, that if you spray the counter or wherever with windex and leave it overnight, the ants will go away as they hate the soap.… Read more »
Thank you for this post. My small terrier is severely allergic to wasps & bees. So much so that I have epinephrine on hand at all times. Please watch your pets. Typically, a sting or ingestion of the insect shouldn’t result in a severe reaction but like people our pets can go into anaphylactic shock. The signs include struggling breathing, vomiting, gand a gray-colored tongue & gums. This is a medical emergency & benadryl alone will not reverse the reaction. Even with epinephrine, an emergency trip to the vet is still required.
I am no lover of wasps but please be aware that wasps and other insects are also pollinators and we should try to avoid killing if at all possible.
At our Florida home we have “mud daubbers”, a wasp. We painted the ceilings of our lanais, and the upper ‘window buck’ (where the outside of the window frame hangs over) blue. Didn’t totally wipe out, but 90% success. Wasps see blue as sky and tend to avoid.
Yes!! My husband found this out some years ago and painted the porch ceilings blue, our house was salmon pink. Yes we live in Fl!!!. We repainted our house blue with yellow and white trim. So most every thing is wasp, dauber proof! But we find wasp in the conch shells in the garden, pagoda statues, in parts of our travel trailer, under an out door table, under a blanket that was drying on the They are everywhere!! I have a big jar of peppermint oil, that is a hint I will try!