Boat wasp repellent?

[jdlough]

Every year wasps build nests inside the gunnels of my skiff. They get in through the control cable and rod holder holes, and wiring holes under the console.

Every year I spray wasp killer in the holes. This kills most of them, but the next day they're back. The wasp spray doesn't seem to leave a residue that repels wasps, and I can't hit the nests.

This year I want to repel them before they get a start.

Blocking the holes won't work. There's too many ways for them to get in.

I'm considering dumping moth balls through the holes, and down into the bilge. I'm finding conflicting information on whether moth balls deter wasps.

Maybe an aerosol bug bomb in the bilge?

Spray wasp killer around the holes every couple of days to convince them to build elsewhere?

Any ideas?

 

[yabuoy]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

An aerosol bug bomb does leave a residue that repels and kills bugs, but I dunno if it is recommended to place one in a space as small as the bilge. Look for a spray that specifically leaves a residue to continue killing pests. They also make a product that traps bugs in a small box lined with sticky tape. Here is the Amazon link. http://www.amazon.com/Victor-M256-Poison-Free-Insect-12-Pack/dp/B0002YW26E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330835498&sr=8-1 I use it to place in storage areas where bugs will be and they're attracted to a scent in the traps that gets them into the trap and they eventually die. You could place them around where you are worried they may try to make a nest.

 

[kmarine]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

check with an exterminator, I believe there is a silica gel simular to beef jerky packets that deter wasps and bees. there may be other natural dererents as well.

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

A "Crawling Insect Spray" like "Ant and Roach" spray may work.
It leaves a residue that is good for a week or two.
You are not trying to get the flying ones, just the ones that land and walk in the stuff.

 

[Scott Danforth]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

you will have to get rid of the nests, and the insects. your only killing a few. my guess is you have a queen in the boat somewhere.

then I would move on to a wasp trap.

 

[jdlough]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

Scott, I've been reading about the Paper Wasp life cycle, and I think you're right. I probably have hibernating queens in there. The new queens each start a new nest each year, but I can't get to the nests.

I'm thinking getting some No Pest Strips. http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Shot-5580-Unscented-Repellent/dp/B0019BK8AG The plan is to remove the strip from the cardboard packaging and stuff it down the control cable holes. Replace monthly through the season. It seems to be one of the few things to repel wasps.

I'll check back later in the season to report on the results.

I considered Cypermethrin. Mixing it with water and spraying some in the holes. It's supposed to be great for killing AND repelling wasps.
This stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/Martins-VIPER-Insecticide-Concentrate-Cypermethrin/dp/B005BDDWW4

I checked into it, and I think I will NOT use it. It is highly toxic to fish, and not too great for people also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypermethrin

I still haven't found any evidence that moth balls do anything to repel wasps.


As a side-note, last year I lifted the outboard cowling and discovered a huge nest in there. I keep honeybees, so I put on my full bee suit with gloves, went out there, ripped the nest out and tossed it into the water. It was quite satisfying to see fish snapping them up!
That bee suit has come in handy more than once.

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

I am going to suggest the "Ant and Roach" crawling insect killer again.
It is slow acting. The wasps will get it on their feet and track it into the nests.
As they keep bring the Queen food, they will eventually kill her.

Most Wasp products are designed to kill in seconds.
If it takes an hour or two to kill the nest, do you really care?

 

[jdlough]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

Ok, I'll do the one-two punch. No Pest Strips and 'Ant and Roach' killer.

The skiff is mainly for my teenage boys' use. It turns out they are wasp-wusses and therefore are 'losing interest' in boating.

 

[cyclops2]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

Shrink wrap the boat.
Also you CAN start plugging up the holes with Silicone rubber. Stretch cloth & tape overe big areas. Put the boat where the sun can heat up the area where the nests are. They need water & food.
Starve the whole bunch to death.

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

For instant wasp killer, I haven't found much better than the Spectracide Pro Wasp/Hornet Killer. Don't buy the regular Spectracide stuff, as it's crap. The Professional version is just a white can with black writing, and it works wonders. The product claims to keep wasps from returning for a month. That stuff is also instant death when it touched them.

I have found it at the local Home Depot, but haven't seen it much elsewhere. They normally don't carry much of it, as frequently the shelves will be bare of the product in late spring.

 

[floatfan]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

The skiff is mainly for my teenage boys' use. It turns out they are wasp-wusses and therefore are 'losing interest' in boating.

I can relate. Never had issue with them building on my fiberglass boat, but they love my little Alumacraft river boat. A wasp killing around my place usually is a multi-day event. First I realize they're there, then run to the house and peep out the windows for a while assessing the situation. After getting some wasp spray, I foolishly believe the "sprays 20 feet" claim on the bottle, only to discover that 20' calculates to about 10' here in Georgia (must be the altitude ). The wasps however sense my ill-intentions, and start flying around. I run back to the house, peeping out the window for a couple of hours letting them settle down. I then bravely walk a giant semi-circle back to the boat, get within the 10' range and attempt to spray them again, only to turn tail and run at the first site of movement. Generally, there is a lookout wasp still cruising the area, who makes a fly by while I'm just starting the spray. Back inside I go. Flash Gordon would be proud. I repeat these steps for the rest of the day/weekend, with hopes that next weekend these vile critters will be gone and I can take the boat out. I'm a definite wasp wuss.

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

If you can get it in your state, try Drione. It is a dessicant powder that lasts quite a while. You put it in with a puffer. It's outlawed many places, but somehow, eBay sellers still carry it. I live in a log home and have a perpetual fight with bees and wasps. My exterminator reccomended this as it's what he uses. Hopefully it's obvious, but be careful with the stuff.

Oh yeah, and don't spray it (or anything else) anywhere it will kill honey bees, they're friendly and you want to keep them around.

 

[camaro9488]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

I use the cheap toilet bowl blocks with the little wire hanger. Wasps hate them. I also spray pyretherin spray in my boat once a year to keep the bugs away. Even the mosquitoes don't come near.

 

[cyclops2]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

You do realize that the colder the air temperature, the less active they are ??

Get up early. About 1 hour before sunrise. Let the hive have it then.

A big hive LOVES A couple of nice blasts of CO2 from a CO2 fire extingusher. Freezes them nicely. We rip the hive out, cool some more & toss them on a HOT flaming grill. Works everytime. Squemish ? Spay them with the Prostuff from the other poster.

Either way, we always tear apart the frozen nest to find & kill the queen for sure.

 

[Rockmere1]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

A couple of nice blasts of CO2 from a CO2 fire extinguisher. Freezes them nicely

I will have to try this!!

 

[dingbat]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

I would wait a couple more weeks until they start to become active again then tape up all the holes in the boat the best you can and set off one of these in the bilge. No more problem

 

[jdlough]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

I checked with some of my beekeeping mentors....

Right now in Maryland wasps aren't active yet. Paper Wasps do not use last year's nest. A new queen starts the building of a new one, then her new kids help expand it. The new queens are right now (late winter) still hibernating, under your shed, in my boat bilge, wherever.

Last year's queen died last year. Last fall, she produced some virgin queens, who mated, then the new queens went into hiding to hibernate, waiting to start a new nest this spring. The new queens may be hibernating in the area of the old nest, or not.

They have the same life cycle as most bumble bees. Honey bees are way different.

The kind of wasp I'm dealing with are the normal paper wasps, with the open nests. Not the closed football shaped nest that hornets and other wasps use. The paper wasp queen doesn't hibernate with the nest. She hides under sheds, in wood piles, etc.

I can't get to the queen or any new nests hidden within my boat, so I think I'll first start with the bug bomb idea, blocking off any holes that I can, to try to get any hibernating queens. I like Speckoz Evercide just for the name. It sounds like it could be Boris Badenoff's boss' name.

Throughout the season I'll try the No Pest Strip down in the gunwales, and Spectracide Pro Wasp/Hornet Killer in and around all the holes. I think I'll even add the toilet bowl hanger thing. I hope all this doesn't melt fiberglass.

The CO2 fire extinguisher would be fun, but I can't get to them. And blocking all access holes is not feasible with this boat. Actually, I do have a C02 extinguisher that's about to expire. In a couple of months, if they do return, I think I'll try attaching a hose to it, stuffing the hose in various holes, and blasting away!

I do keep honeybees, and this year I'll have at least 4 hives within a couple hundred yards of the boats. The boats are on lifts, though, and the honeybees generally are not interested in them. I don't think insecticide on the boats is a problem for them.

The bee suit is great. I get lots of wasp nests under old shed eves and such. I am invincible in my spaceman bee suit! (see post #6 pic) I just put it on, get the ladder, and rip the nests off. It used to unnerve me a bit, watching them 4" away from my face, trying to sting me thru the veil. Now, I'm used to it and trust the suit. I laugh in the face of face-stings. HA!!!

floatfan, get a bee suit. About $60 for a full, cheap one. You'll feel like a superhero. Invincible!!!!!!

 

[cyclops2]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

Bumble Bees in the ground after a lawnmower goes over them are nasty. Maybe the motor rpms are sounding like a swarm of other bees to them. Neighbor found a BIG nest that way. They got him.

Remembered a BIG nest underground by the electric meters. South side of the house.comb was5' x3' x 1' thick. Good thing I dug there EARLY in a cool morning. Couple of sluggish guards chased me away.

 

[jdlough]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

Everybody says winter is a great time to destroy wasp nests. First, don't bother with wasp nests, because wasps don't reuse them. In fact, an old nest may deter wasps from making a new one nearby.
Wasps are dormant in winter that is true.

But, DON'T mess with honey bee hives in winter. Honey bees DON'T go dormant, and winter is their most important time to defend the hive. Even in Wisconsin winter, honey bees keep the interior of the hive at about 95 degrees, by flexing their wing muscles. That's why they store all that honey. For food to keep them going over the winter.

BTW, for anybody who thinks they got stung by a bee at a barbeque. No you didn't. You got stung by a Yellow Jacket (a type of wasp)

If you see 'bees' going after your crab shells at a crab feast, or hovering around your beer or soda, they are Yellow Jackets.
Wasps eat meat and fruit. Honeybees want flowers - pollen and nectar. (Honey bees WILL go after a sugar/water solution, at certain drought (non-flowering) times of the year, but is not their preference. I feed my honey bees sugar/water in late fall, or early spring just to help them over the winter, but they'd rather have the real thing). At any rate, if you ever see a 'bee' at your crab-feast leftover shell table, I will bet my life that it is not a 'bee'. Bees don't eat meat.

I'm a 50+year old beekeeper. I just realized last year that maybe I've NEVER been stung by a 'bee'. (Unless as a kid I maybe stepped on one).

Here's the deal: Wasps (hornets and yellow jackets) defend everything all the time. They can sting multiple times, with no detriment to themselves. So they have no reason not to. They are naturally bread to be *****holes. Their stingers have no barbs, like barbless hooks we're now using in pre-Striper catching season.

Honeybees only defend the hive, and the honey. If a honeybee stings you, it dies. That's of no use to the hive, away from the hive. Any honey bee away from the hive REALLY doesn't want to sting you. It will only sting you away from the hive if you step on it, or trap it in some way. Honey bees graduate through different jobs to be an outside, forager bee. These outside bees are CPO, Sargent, experienced bees, useful to the hive. The hive really can't survive a forager bee losing it's life on stupid shlt.

It's all a matter of timing, which makes sense when you think about it.

See, if you messed with a honey bee hive in early June, you may get away with it. The bees have plenty of time to fix it or make new honey before winter.

Last week I was convinced that I needed to open my hives and feed them. (Long story short here). So I did. I put on the bee suit (which I thought was a waste of time), smoked the hives (to convince the hive that 'Fire may be coming. Ignore the dude in the suit and prepare to move the hive')

So, in Feb at 58 degrees I popped open the hive with a tray of condensed sugar water. These bees, the gentlest bees I've ever known, attacked me like I was a red shirt in a Killer Bee movie. They ignored the smoke, and in seconds covered my veil, so I couldn't see.

Aside from being freaked out, I was a bit stunned. These were my bee bros.

Usually, smoking the honeybees is a very high priority, so they ignore the beekeeper.

Apparently, In late winter, they have not much winter honey stores, so protecting the hive is even higher than protecting against fire.

It was weird. In seconds, I could not see beyond my veil. And this was my smallest of my gentlest hives. I did the same to my other hives, and it was worse.

Creeped me out. And I'm a beekeeper. Still, creeped me out.


Lesson learned; don't mess with honeybees in winter.

Knock down all the wasp nest in winter you want to. Doesn't matter. Wasps won't reuse them, anyway. BUT the old nests MAY convince the new wasps to make a new nest elsewhere.

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Boat wasp repellent?

Bumble Bees in the ground after a lawnmower goes over them are nasty. Maybe the motor rpms are sounding like a swarm of other bees to them. Neighbor found a BIG nest that way. They got him.

Remembered a BIG nest underground by the electric meters. South side of the house.comb was5' x3' x 1' thick. Good thing I dug there EARLY in a cool morning. Couple of sluggish guards chased me away.

Interesting. Most of the time when someone runs over a next in the ground, it's a hornet nest. The are the ones who typically dwell in the ground and will absolutely light someone up when they get disturbed. My father and his Golden Retriever unfortunately found that out one afternoon; he said he never jumped off the mower and ran so fast in his life. Poor dog had a few hornets stuck in his fur a few hours after the ordeal!