As is so often the case with annoying, unwanted animal settlements in the house and garden, wasps can best be kept in check with bait. Read on to find out how magnetic they are to keep them away from the dining table on the terrace.

Wasps love sweets - and savory

Deliberately distract wasps

Who doesn't know this: No sooner has you sat down at the coffee table on the terrace on a beautiful July day with delicious Danish pastries than loudly humming, yellow and black striped spiked creatures challenge you for the delicacies. Not only do they act completely self-confident and offensive - if you are not careful, they may even get in your mouth, which can have very dangerous consequences.

What initially appears to be an annoying fact can, however, also be exploited. Because you can rely on this obvious greed of wasps for sugary things to keep them away from your coffee table - at least a little.

Why wasps are so attracted to sweets - and savory ones

Especially in late summer, when the wasp colonies are at an advanced generation rearing stage, there are excessive wasp plagues. During this time there are already many workers in the wasp colony who have to take care of about 7000 to 9000 larvae and themselves. So they are constantly on the lookout for protein for their offspring and sweets for their own energy needs.

To remember:

  • Wasp colonies grow most strongly in late summer
  • The many workers then have to collect a lot of protein for the larvae and sweets for themselves

Take advantage of the wasps' preferences

You can therefore easily take advantage of the needs of the wasps. A bowl of sweets specially placed for them in a place where they won't disturb you can give you more peace of mind. A bowl of pure sugar water or fruit lemonade is ideal - it offers the wasps an easily accessible and extremely tasty source of food. What the stinging insects also like to pounce on is overripe fruit. With a bowl of mushy grapes or plums, you'll gather a lot of wasps at once - preferably at the very edge of the garden.

But hearty food also efficiently attracts wasps. Raw meat or raw fish in particular have shown a strong effect in research experiments.

Category:

Animals in the garden