My yard’s been mostly dead the last couple of months, so thankfully, there hasn’t been much to mow. Might change if we finally get rain this week.
The paper wasps are out of hand, though. The entire neighborhood’s been talking about it. Black and yellow satan bug nests everywhere, on everything.
In desperation, I bought a pack of those fake beehives from Amazon that look like paper lanterns. The reviews were good.
No. It wasn’t to make an offering. In case you’re wondering.
The idea is that paper wasps and bees are territorial and that paper wasps do not like bees and will avoid them at all costs, even so far as to pack up and leave at the sight of a hive.
So if you hang a vaguely beehive-shaped and colored object in the vicinity, even a paper bag, they’ll find somewhere else to live.
Supposedly.
Some fervently believe decoys work against paper wasps. Some do not.
Back in the CLF days, Noreen Crone-Findlay discussed her wasp-battling experiences in Canada, which led to her design of a fake crocheted wasp nest decoy pattern in The Crochet Liberation Front Ravelry group.
Around the same time, I was working on a similar idea for my in-laws, who were in the heat of a wasp battle in NJ. My John was deathly allergic to wasps and bees, so I was thinking on the problem, and that something made out of “That Old 70s Yarn” could withstand the weather.
So… I’ve been aware of the idea for a while. (Longer than I want to admit.)
As a crochet project, it was in my pile and still exists today as a UFO in my yarn stash somewhere… but I never finished it. Nor did I ever try out a purchased fake beehive.
This year’s numbers (in Austin) have been off the charts for wasps, though. So I thought, “What the heck — WHY NOT?”
THE DAY HAS COME.
But… I don’t really have time to crochet a beehive these days. So, the Amazon decoy beehive “lanterns” will have to do.
I installed a beehive decoy at the corner of my house, hanging from my flood lights, between the garage door and my front door.
It didn’t seem to change anything at first, but after a couple of weeks, all of the nests up front have been abandoned, while all the nests in the back of my house are still live.
Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but there were a lot of nests before I hung up the wasp decoy. And both big and small were all abandoned along either side of the fake hive under the eaves. Not a one left.
I plan to hang more decoys in the backyard this week.
We shall see.
Crochet Liberation Front:
Aberrant Crochet (TM) 