Top Queen Wasp assassins

Who can rid Blackwood and Barry’s Reef of the most Queen European Wasps?

The Queens are out and about this time of year looking for new nesting sites, so it’s a great time to trap them.

Each Queen can potentially produce up to 40,000 off-spring, so you can see what a great investment you can make right now to protect the district from swarming wasps early in the new year when the weather warms up.

Trapper	Queens	Potential wasps (x 40K)
Violet and Pete from Barry’s Reef	17	680,000
Diana D	6	240,000
Peter D	6	240,000
Post Office crew	3	120,000
Nicola S	2	80,000
Total	34	1,360,000

How many have you killed? Send your tally and tips to admin@blackwoodlandcare.org.au

Trapping techniques

Traps can be bought from hardware stores and come supplied with sachets of “attractant”. But this time of year Queens seem more interested in sweet home-made remedies. Alexander from the Post Office has had success with this recipe:

Take two rashers of bacon and dice and fry them until the fat liquifies. About about 250gm of sugar and fry until caramelised.

Put a litre of boiling water into a bowl and add the bacon mix along with as much sugar as can be dissolved (say 300 grams).

Transfer to wasp traps.