Pests We Treat - Wasps at senior living community in Lanoka Harbor, NJ.

If you ask someone from New Jersey what type of wasp you would most want to avoid, the likely answer would be yellow jackets. These wasps have a reputation for a nasty disposition, and rightly so. They are a particularly nasty predatory wasp that are responsible for a good percentage of insect stings. Interestingly, only the females are capable of stinging, but even just the female population is more than enough to cause problems. Yellow jackets are often confused with the much less aggressive bee who is more interested in pollinating plants and flowers than stinging people. Yellow jackets are smooth with a well-defined waist and  have distinctive coloring with alternating black and yellow stripes. Bees are are rounder and hairier. Yellow jackets, like most wasps, can sting repeatedly, and won’t hesitate to do so when threatened.  A single yellow jacket colony can house as many as 5,000 members! With a nest that has been formed nearby a home, it’s only a matter of time before someone in the family receives some painful stings.

An active yellow jacket nest is a troublesome situation, even for a pest control technician wearing protective gear. I treated the burrow in Lanoka Harbor, NJ with a residual dust, being especially careful to not get the wasps “riled up.” When it comes to treating yellow jackets, the trick is stealth — coming in under the radar and killing them quickly. Fortunately, I completed this job without a single sting. All in all, this was a successful yellow jacket removal job for both me and the homeowner. She was appreciative that I bravely ventured into “hostile territory,” and quickly resolved her stinging insect problem.