Yellow jackets are a common sight once summer arrives and often continue to spot them through fall. Once they’ve found a food source and built a nest on your property, they become a hazard. Yellow jackets are known to sting multiple times and may trigger a serious allergic reaction. If you’ve spotted these pests around your home, it may be time to contact a yellow jacket nest removal specialist.
Identifying Yellow Jackets
Both are black and yellow in color, but yellow jackets are different than bees. As part of the wasp family, yellow jackets have a few key differences:
- They have a thinner, more defined waist and wings that are as long as the body when folded.
- They’re relatively small in size, measuring 10mm to 16mm long (1/2 to 5/8 inches long).
- A yellow jacket may also display some white coloring.
- While yellow jackets are pollinators, they feed on grubs, flies and arthropods like ants. They are also known scavengers, going after fish, meat and sugary foods.
Yellow Jacket nests also look significantly different. Ball-shaped with a papery appearance and an opening at the bottom, their nests are constructed above and below ground. Eventually, these nests become home to as many as 15,000 yellow jackets. Around your property, you might encounter them:
- In or underneath a shed
- In your garage cans
- On or below a shrub, tree or bush
- In structural voids in your home
- In your attic
- In abandoned rodent tunnels
Inside your home, yellow jackets may chew through drywall and eventually enter your living space. The yellow jacket exterminators at Eliminate ‘Em can provide expert inspection services.
How Yellow Jacket Infestations Develop
A yellow jacket in search of food may become attracted to your yard if you regularly have sweets outdoors – for instance, soda cans, a trashcan with food residue, nectar, or fruit.
Over time, a colony starts to grow with sterile and males by summer. Come fall, a colony typically contains about 1,000 workers. If they notice a threat – something as seemingly innocent as you walking too close to their nest – they’ll attack to defend themselves. For some individuals, the stings may be numerous and painful enough to require medical attention.
If the infestation is not dealt with, the current colony produces next year’s queens after hibernating. The queens then go on to form their own colonies. You may think cold weather will eventually take care of these pests, but don’t depend on it. Based on the lifecycle of these pests, you could be facing multiple infestations by spring. Get ahead of this by contacting Eliminate ‘Em, an experienced yellow jacket removal and pest control company.
Yellow Jacket Nest Removal & Extermination Services
Eliminate ’Em Pest Control offers fast, professional, courteous service, and our licensed technicians are ready to handle all of your yellow jacket pest control needs. Eliminate’ Em offers same-day pest control services and free estimates for yellow jacket extermination. Our technicians:
- Fully survey your home and property to identify all yellow jacket nests.
- Get rid of them using EPA-approved yellow jacket control methods that won’t harm your health.
- Assist with removing any pest-related waste.
- Help you identify factors that could be attracting yellow jackets.
- Provide you with information to avoid future infestations, from trimming back tree branches to better methods of storing trash.
- Can arrive in unmarked vans for your privacy.
Professional technicians are available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to get rid of the summer bugs causing damage or creating a nuisance.
