Annual reminder: Now is the time to set traps for yellow jacket queens

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Your actions this week can prevent thousands of yellow jackets wrecking havoc on your summertime picnic or backyard gardening efforts this summer.

The yellow jacket queens have already been seen out in South Lake Tahoe and now is the time to take action before it's too late.

The queens are the only colony member to hibernate in the winter. She emerges in spring and begins to look for a suitable place to build a nest and begin her new colony. By the end of summer one colony can have 4,000 to 5,000 yellow jackets.

Yellow jackets actually play a role in your garden by taking care of aphids and other small pests. But as soon as they start swarming around your outdoor activities their value is forgotten and most of us just want them gone.

A yellow jacket is a wasp and not a bee. It is sometimes called a "meat bee" but they are not related to the bee family. There isn't just one type of yellowjacket. In Lake Tahoe, there are five different species found flying about. Some build their nests in the ground, others find cavities in spaces such as buildings, sides of homes, inside walls, rodent holes and anywhere else they think is a safe place.

The queen creates her starter nest in spring by chewing plant and wood fibers, making a type of paper. When the nest is started, she begins to lay her eggs. After eggs hatch into larvae, the queen feeds her young with scavenged meat, fish and other insects. As adults, these first offspring are sterile female workers that expand the nest, search for food, and care for the queen and her young. The male drones don't sting, and their main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. After they mature, the yellowjacket queen remains inside the nest laying eggs for the rest of the summer.

Getting rid of the queen as she builds her starter nest in the spring and early summer solves all issues with the yellowjackets in the summer and fall. Drones and worker bees do not know what to do without a queen to give orders and are incapable of building a new nest. Removing the queen takes out a whole colony as there is only one queen per nest.

The best way to start the fight against yellow jackets is to place traps around your yard, away from your house. You can either buy the bait and trap at a local home improvement or hardware store, or, you can make a homemade one. Whichever method you choose, now is the time to get them out. The idea below is one way, another homemade version is to not cut the bottle and put a stick through it with a piece of bacon hanging over it. Soapy water on the bottom and a hole in the side for bees to enter through. The bee eats the bacon, gets too full to fly and falls into the water.

Homemade Trap
What You'll Need:
- An empty 2-liter soda bottle
- Scissors or a utility knife (though a steak knife will do in a pinch)
- Staples or duct tape
- Wire or string
- A hole punch (though, again, the holes can be made with a knife if you don't have a hole punch on hand)
- Fruit juice, soda, or apple cider vinegar

How to Make a Yellow Jacket Trap
1. Cut the very top off of a 2-liter soda bottle. You want to cut it right where the sloping top meets the straight sides of the bottle.
2. Invert the top of the bottle inside the bottom of the bottle, and staple or tape it together.
3. Punch or cut two holes on opposite sides of the bottle, near the top.
4. Tie string or wire onto the bottle. This makes it so you can hang your trap from a tree or hook. If you're in a tree-less area, don't worry about this step - just set the trap on the ground.
5. Add an inch or so of soda, juice, or cider vinegar to the bottom of the bottle. Be sure to splash some onto the inner funnel to lure the yellow jackets in.

Placing the Trap
You want to hang or set the trap at least twenty feet away from where you plan to eat. This way, the yellow jackets will be lured away by the contents of the trap, and they'll crawl down into the bottle. Once they go in, they can't find their way back out. And your picnic or barbecue will be left in peace!

Once the trap is full be sure the yellow jackets are dead by filling the bottle with soapy water and letting it sit a while to drown any that are still alive.

South Lake Tahoe city and county residents can also call the El Dorado County Vector Control to come out to their homes to take care of bees as well as mosquitoes. Part of property taxes paid each year go to this service.