Meat bee trap
Some folks can live and let live in the garden, but meat bees push my limits! A friend told me about this simple way to make a trap for pesky meat bees (or yellow jackets) that can keep them from getting between you and that bite of juicy hamburger next time you BBQ.
Set out your traps at the first sign of meat bees. every one you see in March is a queen. For every queen eradicated, there will be 5000 less workers in August!
Roll up a slice of sliced ham or turkey and thread it on a skewer. Fill an old plastic bowl with water and pour vegetable oil over the surface of the water. (Use an old bowl because it will get yucky after the season and you’ll most likely want to toss it out.)
Set the skewer on the bowl and adjust the water so it is about a 1/4 inch below the meat. The meat should not touch the water because the bees can then climb out.
The bees dip down after lunch to drink the water and Zap! They get caught by the oil. I’m so mean.
After 2 1/2 hours this is what my first trap of the season looks like. The next few traps catch fewer bees because you are hopefully cutting down your yellow jacket population.
If you have a way of dealing with meat bees, I’d love to know!
No, these are not honey bees
No, this doesn’t attract honey bees
When first noticing yellowjackets hovering around the birdbath this July, I set out the trap:
8 hours later:
For big problems with yellow-jacket attacks, you can use this method, related to me recently by Veronica Roberts, “We do a huge bucket filled with water about an inch or so away from the top with a little bit of soap to break the water tension then take a board covered in cat food or whatever flipped upside down. You’ll catch so many this way.” Veronica says you spread the cat food on like a paste. Beverly Stokes provided a picture:
Beverly Stokes says, “I had asked my chicken group on ideas for this issue. Veronica had told me about what she does. So I had everything to make this trap. Just a couple of minutes of setting it up, I had a couple of the meat bees in there. The next morning I had so many of them in the water, it was crazy. I love this trap, it works great for me.”
Beverly simply trashes the dead insects or and other times she feeds them to her chickens and ducks.
Yellowjacket are nest building or ground dwelling insects that we often call wasps.
This nest was found on our property beyond the garden. It had been dug up by some brave animal during the night. A brave one, or a sorrier one now!
Yellowjackets differ from paper wasps as these build nests shown below.
Yellowjackets, shown below, are attracted to meat and love to attend your bbqs, sometimes hovering maddeningly between your mouth and your bite! Some places have so many that eating outdoors is simply impossible.
The difference between wasps, honey bees and yellowjackets
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