Don’t Let Yellow Jackets Hibernate With You This Winter

Have you noticed Yellow Jackets around your house? They’re scouting for a new home right now where they can hibernate through the winter. In nature, they choose tree cavities to build their paper nests, but, not knowing a tree from a house, Yellow Jackets sometimes settle into peoples’ homes!

Yellow Jackets find little holes or openings in houses and build their nests in wall cavities, scratching away at sheet rock and using the gypsum as building material for the nests. Quickly, homeowners’ walls will become paper thin and wet from the larvae. Confused homeowners might see these spots on their walls or ceilings and poke it – and the next thing they know, their houses are full of pests!

Yellow Jackets are often mistaken for Honeybees, but their wings are much longer, bodies thinner and tails more pointed. Yellow Jackets eat other bugs and build complicated nests with whatever materials they can find, including insulation and sheet rock. They will build their nests in the ground, in the attic or behind trees that lean against buildings, as they like their nests located under structures.

Catseye Pest Control can help remove these unwanted nests from your home and will start by treating the nest first from the inside. A few days later, the nest will be cleaned out and the outside entry point will be sealed up. Sometimes homeowners will try to fix the problem by only sealing the outside entry with something like caulk. The bees get trapped inside the wall and will try to find another way out leaving homeowners, once again, with a house full of bees!

Watch for these wet spots on your walls and ceilings, and call for help if you think you might have Yellow Jackets getting ready to hibernate with you this winter.

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