10182 figs and wasps

Get an empty plastic water bottle: cut the top off so as to form a sort of funnel and invert it into the bottle. Half fill the bottle with a mix of wine and water or sugar and water, smear a bit of jam or honey on the bottle top (before inverting), Then hang the bottle decoratively in the tree.

The wasps will be attracted to the sweet smell, crawl inside the bottle, be unable to get out again and drown happily, if you have used wine or unhappily if you haven’t.

This is only my second year here, so don't know how the present compares to the norm, but there do seem to be a lot more unpleasant bugs around this year than last.

Nielo's advice on wasp trap is good. Suggest you hang the traps not too near the house but in several places in a perimeter arrangement so they work no matter which way the breeze is blowing. Only refinement I've seen mentioned elsewhere is adding a bit of yeast to the sugary mixture. The fermentation supposedly increases the distribution of the scent and so draws in more wasps. (If you've never looked for yeast here before, my experience is that dried yeast is hardly ever seen but fresh yeast can usually be found in the chilled sections of supermarkets. Look for little foil-wrapped cubes 2cm on a side somewhere near the cheese or yogurt.)

It's best not to mess with these traps once they've started to work. Don't even think of trying to empty them even if it looks like everything inside is dead. If they fill up or dry out, just make a new one to replace it. It's safest to just leave them until you're absolutely certain that cold weather has killed everything in the bottle.

As for the longer term, the only way I can think of to prevent wasps being attracted to a fig would be for you to do what I did to a fig tree right next to our house: turn it into firewood. Although I didn't do this because of wasps, but rather because in last year's drought the tree was drawing so much moisture out of the ground beneath part of the house that I could measure from day to day the expansion of subsidence cracks.

Al

We have hardly any wasps, or the dreaded hornets this year, early in the year we spotted a woodpecker on our large willow tree and we think it ate the hornet grubs, so did us a big favour.Also what helps is not to leave very ripe fruit on the trees, as this attracts the insects, this applies to grapes as well.
Al ,the thing with cutting down large trees if I remember correctly from my college days is that you then alter the water table and can create more problems, perhaps someone elses memory is more detailed than mine!
A

Re wasps: my granddad made a trap out of a jam jar he'd half filled with beer. Then he cut a hole in the lid, just large enough for a wasp to fly through. The wasp got drunk then couldn't fly back out again.

This year we've destroyed a number of wasp nests, and also have lots of those waspy-looking insects with dangly attachments. Definitely more biting and stinging insects than last year.

Thanks for the bottle and jar advice. Good for figs and fruit trees but when we get wasps that make nests on the wall near the swimming pool, we spray with a purpose made aerosol. It's a huge yellow can, and seems to have a reassuring effect on guests and kills the wasps too. We find the small nest and destroy it. Opening bedroom, outside shutters earlier in the year, I found a cricket ball size, two toned, coffee coloured Hornets nest. So beautiful, but lethal. Had to break it up and Signora Calibro was greatly distressed but eventually abandoned the spot and we could leave the window open.

If you have a hornets nest don't muck about with it call the fire brigade, they will deal with the nest, you have to pay for the insecticide but hornets can be very dangerous and the fire brigade know what they are doing.

One easy way to get rid of wasps nest is to use a wacuum cleaner. Place the tube inlet one inch from the entrance of the nest, leave it running for appr. one hour. Thus you will suck in all insects flying out as well as those coming in for landing. Put a rag in the tube, and repeat the ordeal next day. You then have got the wasps that was out for a long trip the previous day. You have then gotten all insects into the dust bag and can dispose of it by putting it in a plastic bag.

Still sounds dangerous to me I&S, plus the cost of electricity and the noise, easier and safer to blast from a few metres away with a spray and retreat a safe distance.As for hornets am with Nielo on that ,call the fire brigade.
A

[quote=Angie and Robert;94810]Still sounds dangerous to me I&S, plus the cost of electricity and the noise, easier and safer to blast from a few metres away with a spray and retreat a safe distance.As for hornets am with Nielo on that ,call the fire brigade.
A[/quote]
Electrisity cost is probably less that the cost of chemicals. And probably less costly that calling the firebrigade.
Wacuum cleaner is pollution free (not considering the pollution at the power plant.)

We have used wacuum cleaner many times and has not been stung yet.

But is it safe? I think we were only advocating calling the firebrigade for hornets nests, not for wasps.
Tell you what you continue to use your vacume cleaner and I will opt for a safe distance and a spray.
A

[quote=Angie and Robert;94778]Al ,the thing with cutting down large trees if I remember correctly from my college days is that you then alter the water table and can create more problems, perhaps someone elses memory is more detailed than mine![/quote]
Apologies for taking the thread Off Topic, but yes, you're right about water tables being altered. Not so much of a problem with our place since it's on the top of its own little knoll and the water table is who knows how many meters down, but it was something I wondered about when slaughtering the ancient fig.

In fact, the results have been wholly positive. After I chopped down the tree, the cracks in the house immediately stopped expanding, but what surprised me was that as soon as the rains finally came last year, in a few weeks those cracks closed up from more than a centimetre to a bare millimetre. I had no idea that soil that is rehydrated after stopping tree roots sucking moisture from it will heave with such force that it can lift a traditionally built Italian farmhouse.

Al

Do you eat the fruit because we have a fig tree near the house which gives great shade (fruit is not good though). Every year we prune it so we get the shade but not the fruit.

... we bought one the blue/black light gizmos often seen in restaurants etc. Very effective, though some of the hardier took more than one zap. Not sure if the nest we had was hornet or wasp, I think the former in view of the size.

I know this is an old thread but I heard about this product earlier this year and by all accounts it does the business. Worth investigating if you have regular Wasp problems. BTW I have no links with the company and I'm not trying to sell anything.

[url=http://www.wasp-away.co.uk/?gclid=CMK6jK3o9pICFQOc1AoduUN2GQ]The Waspinator - Wasp Deterant for your Home and Garden[/url]