I am having second thoughts about my wasp pub

[Sparklingbrook]

I bought a wasp pub as we have loads of wasps at the moment and I wanted to be able to eat outside without getting plagued.

I have set it up and we have our first victim trapped. But now I am feeling sorry for it because it can't get out! seems a bit cruel.

DS and DH think it's great but eating your lunch watching insects die isn't going to be fun is it?

I'm allergic to wasp stings. Have ended up in hospital so am no fan.

However, this is cruel.

Well, at this time of year wasps are all drunken hooligans anyway. You see them staggering about in a right state . Joking apart, Citronella candle for the garden? The jam thing works ok too, and if you have guests who are smokers that should deter the stripy psychopaths as well.

Now I see you've taken it down.

I did not know about the fake nests though so thank you for the thread!

They really are stupid. I have taken the lid off, and yet they are still going in and they really can't find their way out through a huge hole.

I dislike wasps but having read up in what useful little buggers they are, I can’t bring myself to kill them. On holiday in Prague we were plagued with them but we discovered they were after our ham, once we’d laid out a small slice of decoy ham they were no bother.

The awful things are driving us crazy in Vancouver too. Trying to eat al fresco on our 8th floor balcony is becoming a non stop battle. It's a small balcony and just one wasp can be a major pest.

The little creeps zoom in and then do that dodging and weaving flying thing. I wish I could ignore them but I just can't. I am afraid of being stung. DH was stung on his hand by one of them last week.

I think the problem with "wasp pubs" (and I know you've removed yours, OP, but there are probably many other people who are still using them) is that they continue to attract and kill wasps for weeks at a time, not just the odd hour here and there when you're eating outside. Most of the wasps that they kill therefore wouldn't have caused any problem for you.

I think the PP who suggested a saucer with a bit of jam in a distant corner of the garden, perhaps combined with a fake wasp nest where you are sitting, has the most effective and environmentally responsible method of wasp deterrence.

Wasps are totally evil little fuckers. They get all up in your face when they're pissed and rowdy and won't ever fuck off.

I'm also terrified of them so they have the last laugh.

You are of course utterly unreasonable for wanting to sit in your garden and not let them crawl all over your sandwiches, @Sparklingbrook. Tsk.

Well yes @ShrimpingViolet obviously you cannot be at one with nature unless you have a side dish of wasps with your meal and a couple floating in your wine.

On a raft of course, to keep them out of harm's way @Sparklingbrook

Thought you might enjoy this song.........

Very apt @1FineDane

Looks like summer is nearly over, and the opportunities for eating outside will be few and far between and hopefully the wasps will be gone soon.

Apparently if you cut a lemon in half and fill it with cloves it will deter wasps
MIL went to a cafe this summer and they had them on the table and they weren’t bothered at all
We have bought our lemons and cloves but not tried it yet!

That's it. Enough is enough. Just finished dinner of chicken, potato salad and corn. We ate on our balcony. It was non-stop harassment. I'm trying to not react and flap about but then they landed on my fork, and ON my chicken. Heaven knows where they had been.

I realize they are pollinators and all, but really? They can't be pollinating anything this late in the season.

An humane dispatch to the wasp afterlife was the only solution. We don't have enough space to place a decoy dish of chicken. It would be right next to us.

I am a wasp assassin. (Breathes on fingernails and gives them a good polish.)

I have never seen as many wasps as I have seen this past couple of weeks. The other day there were hundreds of them buzzing round the bin and dozens of them actually in my house. And they were right in my face, even though I'm a stand still and don't flap kind of person.

Then they started dropping dead so it was a battle not to stand on them. I have no regrets about killing a few of them. They were on their last legs anyway, and I was trying to cook and they were actually flying down into the saucepans trying to get at the food which I didn't think very hygienic.