EC
SYSTEMS
Pest Elimination Specialists
Products & Services in Harmony with the Environment
Yellow Jackets
EC Pest Elimination Specialists Products & Services in Harmony with the Environment Yellow Jackets |
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EcoSystems' outdoor yellow jacket program was implemented several years ago and began as a pilot program at three area golf courses. We looked at the following premise: Since each over wintering queen is responsible for between 4,000 to 5,000 workers during the course of a season and since the queen is out of her nest only in the spring, if we caught several queens, would this reduce the overall populations later on in August, September and October? We began by placing bait traps with various bait mixtures at key areas on the golf courses. We monitored each trap and recorded the number of queens caught. It didn't take long to determine which bait mixture did the best job of catching queens, and we standardized all our traps with the same bait. By the end of spring we had caught on average about 50 queens per golf course. That in itself reduced the fall populations in those areas by 200,000 - 300,000. After several years of control at the same location, some golf courses that used to have a serious yellow jacket problem now see very few in the fall, while a few miles away they continue to be quite a problem. That's quite a dramatic effect after only a few years! It is still too early to tell if the overall effect in any one area can be permanently affected by ongoing control measures. We continue to catch a substantial number of queens every year, even on our original pilot courses. If it is a particularly good year for a queen to over winter, we will catch more than in the years where queens have a harder time. There is one fact that we know for sure. The incidences of problem yellow jackets harassing and stinging patrons at an outdoor facility such as a park, fairgrounds, swimming pool or golf course can be greatly reduced by the implementation of an ongoing yellow jacket control program! Key Benefits to Control Program
The most common yellow jacket wasp is usually of the German variety and is generally the most aggressive of the three different species. For more information on Yellow Jacket Wasps, check out the following web pages. |
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