[Stinging Insects] On Alert

Of all the pests our industry deals with, stinging pests may pose the greatest risk to people. Most stings occur 1) without warning and 2) from a pest a homeowner often does not even know is there. From a yellowjacket nest located hidden in the soil in a landscape bed to the single scorpion that crawls into a sandal on the patio or in a garage, a sting can be sudden and will be unexpected. The offending bee or wasp may not even be from a nest on the person’s property. And if the person has a sting allergy, the event could be life-threatening.

As a pest management professional, often little can be done from a preventive standpoint when it comes to stinging pests. Social bee and wasp nests are notoriously difficult to see early in the season, and even as the nest grows larger as the summer wanes, the homeowner, who spends considerably more time than you do on the property, may walk repeatedly by a nest and not see it. You may service a home or business on a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or even annual basis. During your service visits, despite your most diligent inspections, it can be easy to overlook a social bee or wasp nest or uncover a single scorpion hidden within a landscape timber, the mulch or similar location. Even paper wasps, which usually construct nests in the open, will locate within electric boxes, hose reels, and inside the soffits of the home, hidden from view.

Unfortunately, the first indication of the presence of a stinging pest comes from the customer who has seen wasps flying in and out from the soil or a wall, a nest up on the house or in a shrub or tree, or a scorpion seen in the garage, kitchen or bathroom. The first call will often be to you, their pest management service provider, to come to the rescue. This article provides 10 tips to consider when dealing with stinging pests once that call comes in.

1. Be Alert
No matter what kind of pest you’re looking for, you should be aware of your surroundings and be alert to the presence of stinging pests, especially yellowjackets, hornets and paper wasps. Early in my career, I was performing a termite inspection and uncovered a yellowjacket nest while turning over a landscape timber to check for a totally different (and non-dangerous) social insect. It’s amazing how fast you can run when that happens. On another occasion, I was treating the exterior of a house in Georgia and received a sting on the head from a paper wasp. And I can’t count the number of times I’ve been surprised by paper wasp nests hidden in small, unassuming voids such as a hose reel, grill, under a deck railing or a soffit. One time, I was drilling the hollow block in a crawlspace for termites and was surprised by yellowjackets pouring out one of my drill holes.

Even when you know that yellowjackets are present, finding the nest opening is not always quickly done. I “discovered” a yellowjacket nest with my lawnmower one summer (receiving eight to nine stings in the process) and it took 45 to 60 seconds to actually find the nest entrance in the lawn. The point is that you can encounter a stinging pest anytime whether you’re on the job or at your home.

2. Is it Social or Solitary?
Throughout the United States, one can find more than two dozen yellowjacket species, a few species of hornets, honey bees, bumble bees, numerous paper wasp species, a myriad of solitary bees and wasps, a few species of stinging ants and a dozen or more scorpion species.

Solitary bees and wasps typically cause more customer concern than is warranted, but a few, like the carpenter bee, mud daubers and leaf cutter bees are capable of causing significant to minor damage or defacement of a property. Stings from solitary bees and wasps are rare, but they do occur, usually by accident. Social bees and wasps, however, will aggressively defend their nest.

Social bees and wasps also are generally more difficult to control, depending on where the nest is located. Occasionally, a solitary bee or wasp species proves a challenge; for example, cicada killers nesting in large numbers in a landscape bed around a hotel swimming pool or “digger” bees nesting in the sandbox at a day care center.

Knowing which insect you’re dealing with is therefore important to selecting control measures to use. It is usually easy enough to identify which type of social bee or wasp is present as these insects are typically easy to tell apart. The solitary bees and wasps can be more problematic as there could be numerous species flying around structures that might end up indoors. Most of these often are not infesting the building, rather they are occasional invaders. Without entomological training, you may not be able to identify some of them. As a rule of thumb, if it is not recognizable as one of the common bees or wasps in your area, it is likely not something that may require controlling — but — you should have an entomologist identify it to be sure.

One last consideration for those who live in states where Africanized honey bees (AHB) could be encountered: assume every honey bee colony could be AHB. I like to tell service professionals (while smiling) that the way to tell if you’re dealing with AHB is to throw a rock at the colony. If the bees are still chasing you after a quarter mile, they’re probably AHB. I am being facetious here, but the fact remains that AHB are very aggressive, and if you set them off in a neighborhood, the bees are capable of going off on a neighborhood-wide stinging binge. For this reason, if AHB are in your area, refer to tip #4 below when dealing with any honey bee nest.

3. Wear Your Armor
As the CBS sitcom character Barney Stinson often says, “Suit up!” You need to protect yourself when treating for social bees and wasps such as yellowjackets, hornets, honey bees and bumble bees. Of course, Barney’s suit is made of fine Italian wool while yours needs to be able to withstand a swarm of angry insects.

A sturdy bee suit is preferred over heavy coveralls. Coverall fabrics are not designed to stop bee stings no matter how thick the fabric. A helmet and standard bee veil should be worn (not a towel and hard hat as I’ve seen before). Heavy gloves are also needed, preferably the long bee gloves that go up to the elbow. The only time I’ve been stung while actually performing a bee treatment was when wearing short gloves. The heel of my hand became exposed at some point, and I got nailed by an angry bumble bee. I now own a set of the long gloves.

Persons allergic to insect stings should avoid doing stinging pest treatments even if they plan to wear protective gear. One can receive stings through bee suits and bee veils, and the risk of a severe sting reaction is not worth it.

4. Work the Late Shift
If you’re dealing with solitary bees and wasps, paper wasps, and yellowjacket and hornet nests that are easily accessible, the work can usually be done during the day. Treatments for honeybees in Africanized honey bee states should, however, be done after dusk or before dawn while most of the workers are in the nest and the colony is less active.

You should also consider working at night if the honey bee, yellowjacket or hornet nest requires you to climb a ladder or if the nest is in a difficult to access site. On occasion, you might encounter a giant yellowjacket nest where it may be best to work after dark due to the sheer numbers of wasps that might be present.

If a customer has found numerous scorpions inside, it’s a good idea to conduct a night inspection around the home using a UV black light to determine where scorpions are harboring around the building.

5. Listen Up
Yellowjackets and honey bees often nest within the walls and other voids of homes. Where the insects are seen entering and exiting, however, is usually not where the nest is located. I have seen situations where the entrance hole was 20 feet from the void in which the yellowjackets are nesting. In the case where insects are entering at the juncture between the first and second floor, the nest could be in the second story wall, the bottom floor wall, in the ceiling or a combination of them all. Honey bee nests commonly extend across multiple wall voids or up into an attic or into the crawlspace.

To ensure success in treating the nest, you need to determine the extent of the nest within the walls and other voids. An inexpensive stethoscope is a handy tool for this task. Tapping the walls with a screwdriver handle stirs up the worker bees or wasps. The buzzing they make is then easy to hear. Don’t stop when you find one void with activity; check the others around it, too.

6. Hit the Nest Directly
Contacting a bee or wasp nest directly with a residual insecticide is the most effective treatment. Sounds like common sense, but in many cases getting the insecticide to the nest itself can prove challenging. A bald-faced hornet’s nest is easy to treat (when accessible) because one can poke the treating tool through the side of the nest and easily inject insecticide dust or aerosol throughout the nest.

On the other hand, a yellowjacket nest entering the soffit of a two-story home isn’t so easy to reach. When bees or wasps are infesting structural voids, it is prudent to first determine if the nest can be accessed by drilling through a wall, ceiling or floor. Listening with a stethoscope targets the nest site(s). The voids can then be drilled (use ¼-inch bits) at several locations to cover the extent of the colony and the appropriate insecticide injected. If the nest cannot be drilled from inside, can it be accessed and drilled from the outside? If not, be aware that treatment into the entrance and exit hole may not provide satisfactory results. If the treatment proves repellent, the insects may create another entrance/exit hole, sometimes into the structure itself. If this situation occurs (whether or not due to treatment), plug the hole through the interior wall with steel wool and vacuum up any bees or wasps inside before proceeding to treat the nest.

Yellowjackets and bumble bees do not dig out their nests in soil, rather they take over abandoned animal burrows or natural cavities in the soil. Where the wasps enter and exit therefore may be many feet from the actual nest underground. Using a hand duster or residual aerosol may not project the treatment deep enough to contact the nest itself. Using an electric duster, such as the Exacticide or Power Puff, is beneficial in pushing dust back into the nest. I have, on occasion, used a leaf blower to project insecticide dust applied in the entrance hole throughout the nest.

7. Use a Pyrethrins Aerosol for Knockdown
Over my career, I’ve found that applying a few seconds of a pyrethrins aerosol into a yellowjacket or hornet nest creates disoriented wasps that pay less attention to me while I am applying the residual dust treatment.

8. Be Creative with Play-Doh® or Modeling Clay
You may encounter cases where treatment of a honey bee colony is best done through the entrance/exit hole. Often, this is the case when honey bees are nesting in a tree or natural void, but occasionally, it needs to be done if the bees are nesting in structural voids. The following technique should be used at night.

When working with honey bees, you can use modeling clay (or even Play-Doh®) to seal off the nest entrance to prevent workers from exiting while you treat. Cover the entrance completely with the clay, then push a plastic straw through the clay to form a hole through which to treat. The straw may fill with clay so it may need to be carefully withdrawn and a clean straw pushed through to provide the treatment port. The diameter of a standard straw is small enough to prevent bees from exiting but large enough to permit treatment.

If this technique is used for bees nesting in the building’s walls or other voids, the surfaces around the nest (where bees land before entering) should be treated with a residual water-based product and the clay removed to allow the bees to move in and out at will. If you were to leave the clay in place, the bees may chew their way inside through the wall or ceiling and enter in large numbers — not a good thing. For colonies located within trees or natural voids, however, the clay can be left to seal in the bees. Treat the surfaces around the nest opening with the water-based residual to kill bees that spent the night out as they return to the nest.

9. Deter Solitary Bees and Wasps
Carpenter bees and cicada killer wasps are the most notorious solitary stinging pests. Mud daubers deface the walls of homes and garages with their mud nests. Like cicada killers, other solitary bees and wasps may find a sandbox, landscape bed or garden a great place to construct nest burrows. Leaf cutter bees, like carpenter bees, may chew into wood siding to build nest galleries.
Typically, none of these insects are considered particularly aggressive or dangerous, but the potential for a sting incident is always there. Ask yourself, is there any way to deter the bees or wasps from choosing the affected areas as nesting sites? Will treatments be needed or can the insects be discouraged through nonchemical means? Depending on the situation, consider the following tips:

• Carpenter bees and leaf cutter bees can often be deterred from using an area to nest by treatment using a residual water-based pyrethroid. Cyfluthrin seems to work well but other products will kill bees as they land on surfaces during nest construction attempts.
• Some say that painting or staining wood deters carpenter bees, but I have seen cases where that hasn’t worked. If the insecticide doesn’t repel the bees, then if they land they are likely to absorb a lethal dose.
• If solitary bees or wasps are using a sandbox, covering it with black plastic will eventually cause the insects to go elsewhere and any bee larvae actually in the sand will likely be heated to a lethal temperature during summer. It should take a few days to a week or so to discourage nesting activity.
• Cicada killer wasps that find a landscaped area to their liking may reuse the site year after year. In such cases, covering the soil with landscape fabric and then with a couple of inches of medium-sized stones should result in a wasp-free zone.

10. Note Climbing Costs
Quite a few pest control companies avoid doing social bee and wasp services, as they would rather not have to deal with the risks involved. Meanwhile, those companies that do choose to perform this work should charge accordingly, considering such things as the difficulty involved, whether the work will be done after dark, and how high above the ground the work must be done.
Treating social bee and wasp nests can be risky enough even when the nests are easily reached from ground level. Going up a couple of stories on a ladder, however, increases the risk and your pricing should reflect this risk.

Case in point: I once observed a couple of technicians treat a hornet nest 15 feet off the ground by parking their van underneath and then standing on a step ladder that had been set on top of it. Talk about “natural selection” in action! Luckily, neither one was harmed but this was a case where the customer should have been charged for a lift rental or for rental of a tall step ladder adequate to the job at hand.

Additionally, customers who have honey bees need to be advised up-front that the honey and combs need to be removed after the bees are gone. If your company possesses the necessary construction skills, you can charge for this service. If not, the customer will need to hire their own contractor.

SUMMARY. Not every stinging pest or potential situation was discussed in this article, but these tips cover the most commonly encountered issues.

Having discussed honey bee treatment quite a bit, it must be noted that a bee keeper may in fact be the first person a homeowner should call. If the bees can be removed and used by a keeper, then the effort is worthwhile, as honey bees are a resource. Also, some states may have regulations regarding honey bees and their removal. If the bees can’t safely be removed, they may require treatment using some of the techniques described above.

Above all else, protect yourself as best as possible out there by adhering to Tip #1. Always be alert to the possibility that stinging pests might be around. Work carefully and be safe out there.

The author is a board certified entomologist, professional sanitarian and director of technical services at Terminix International, Memphis, Tenn.

FastOut Takes on Stinging Pests

With universal technicians becoming the rule rather than the exception, product flexibility is essential for pest management professionals, which is why Whitmire Micro-Gen Research Laboratories introduced FastOutTM CS Foam with a broad, flexible label that includes more than 34 structural insects, including wasps, hornets and yellow jackets, as well as cockroaches and ants.

Featuring microencapsulated cyfluthrin with SmartCapTM Technology, FastOut is non-repellent, meaning it won’t interfere with other treatments like baits and non-repellent liquids. In addition, it works quickly to control a wide range of pests and is labeled for use in both food and non-food handling areas of food handling establishments. The ready-to-use product is formulated as a dry foam in a 20-ounce can, making it easy to apply into voids and other out-of-the way locations where insects harbor. “As the foam is applied, it expands, coating insects and all internal void surfaces with microcapsules,” says Marketing Manager Jeff Vannoy. “It delivers the active ingredient deep into hard-to-reach voids, providing long-lasting control.”

FastOut also features a unique hose and delivery tip that requires very little compression to apply the foam, and the product’s SmartCap Technology extends the life of the active ingredient even on damp or porous surfaces, resulting in a product suitable for various pest management applications.

Lynn Frank, technical director at Suburban Exterminating, Smithtown, N.Y., has taken advantage of FastOut’s expanded label to combat hard-to-control carpenter ant and odorous house ant infestations. “I’m sold on the technology for certain applications,” he said. “I think foam is an incredibly successful way to treat all of the ant species that will infest a structure.” Frank also likes the versatility of the product. “FastOut CS Foam has a broad label and can be used for a wide variety of pest problems. We’ve used it on bed bugs and carpenter ants, and we see many more treatment possibilities.”

FastOut is labeled for ants (except fire and harvester), Asian lady bugs, bed bugs, bees, boxelder bugs, carpenter bees, carpet beetles, centipedes, clover mites, cockroaches, crickets, earwigs, firebrats, flies, flour beetles (confused, red, sawtoothed), fruit flies, hornets, Indian meal moths, Mediterranean flour moths, millipedes, scorpions, silverfish, sowbugs, spiders, thrips, ticks, wasps, wood-destroying insects (powder post beetles, old house borer, wharf borer, and subterranean and drywood termites) and yellow jackets.

To learn more about the product, contact your local Whitmire Micro-Gen sales representative or visit www.wmmg.com.