The days are growing longer and the sun is shining brighter. The spring time is one of my favorite seasons of the year. It brings out all the animals that have hibernated over the winter. But with that, it also brings out pests and insects that we haven’t seen for a few months. One of the big insects that comes out during this time are wasps. These stinging insects can be very dangerous for people who are allergic to their sting. We need to talk about wasps, how they survive and how we can deal with them and keep them from hurting our love ones.
ABOUT THE WASP
Wasps are a group of stinging insect from the Hymenoptera family of insects. This includes wasps, bees, ants and other insects. Wasps are six legged insects with two pairs of wings and a stinger. They have segmented bodies including a head, thorax and abdomen. The head contains the vision parts and the mouth or eating parts. It also contains the feelers that it uses to sense its surroundings.
The thorax is the motivating part of the insect. All six legs extend from this middle section and the wings also come off of this section as well. Lastly the abdomen is at the end of the insect. This large, bulbous appendage houses the stinger and many of the vital organs that the insect needs to survive. Between each body section is a very skinny waist. All of these traits are common in the Hymenoptera family of insects. Wasps, like other insects, have to find a way to overwinter. Keeping wasps at bay can be a full time job. Call your Tulsa exterminator for help.
WASPS GETTING THROUGH THE WINTER
Only the females in the wasp species actually make it through the winter. In the fall, all of the males die off. The females will go and find a gap or hole somewhere in a tree or in the ground or possibly in the side of a building. Here they will shelter themselves from the cold and over winter until the spring. Once they feel the heat of the spring, they will come out searching immediately for a meal. Adult wasps feed off of the nectar of flowers and blooming plants. When a female wasp comes out of her hibernating state, she must find a meal quickly or she will starve to death. It takes everything that that she has in order to survive an entire winter.
In some cases, the female wasp will feel the heat of a building. This often happens when the wasp has overwintered in a roof shingle or behind siding or somehow in a place that’s connected to a heated building. When she senses the temperature of the inside of the building, she will come out regardless of whether it’s actually springtime or if it’s still the middle of the winter. When she does, she will seek to go towards the heat. Of course at this time, there are no blooming flowers. Because of this, she will starve and die quickly after exiting her hibernation place. It’s often that I have calls during the winter about dead wasps being on the floor of a persons home. This is what happened.
SURVIVING WINTER
Also, if warm weather comes in the middle of the winter time, this can also wake up some female wasps from their sleep. Once the weather turns cold again they will die quickly. And without flowering plants they will starve to death as well. But most female wasps will make it through the winter. Once they have their first meal, they will get busy starting to build their nests. Your Broken Arrow exterminator will have more details.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF WASPS
Wasp species come in two different kinds. There are social wasps and there are solitary wasps. Social wasps will build large nests with many chambers that each house a single egg in a cell. These eggs will all hatch and multiple bees will come out. Solitary wasps will only create one cell. They will put a single egg in there and seal it off, waiting for it to hatch. Then a single adult will emerge from this cell.
Wasps use their stingers to hunt. They will attack a spider or an aphid or some other insect. The venom from the wasp sting will paralyze an insect permanently. It will take that insect and place it inside the cell with its egg. That insect will not die, but it will live through the entire ordeal of being eaten by the larva that hatches from the egg. Mother nature is truly cruel. Once the lava eats the prey, it will have developed to the point where it can become a full grown adult. It will go through the larva pupa and adult stage completely within its cell. It will break out, drying itself off and then fly off to begin the process again. For more information, call your Tulsa pest control company.
REPRODUCTION AND CONTROL
During the summertime, male and female wasps will be born from these different nests. Males and females, once they meet reproductive age, will mate and continue to reproduce. In the fall, the males will mate with the females one last time before they die. Then mated females will begin the process again of overwintering in cracks and holes.
Dealing with wasps can be difficult. It’s important to treat the eaves of your home with a repellent pesticide. This will deter wasps from making nests up and around your eaves. Breaking down wasp nest and mud dauber nests can keep wasps from being around your home. This is very important, because wasps will protect their nest with stings. In most cases, a wasp will try to flee before it stings, but when its young are in danger it will attack.
ELIMINATING WASPS FOR GOOD
If you’re having trouble with wasps or bees then it’s time to call a Broken Arrow pest control company. Here at TermMax Pest Control, we have train technicians that specialize in every area of pest control. We service the greater Tulsa area including Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Owasso, Prattville, Turley, Coweta, Claremore, Catoosa, Sapulpa and much more. Call us today for a free estimate. We’re here to help!