Wasps in New Jersey and All About Wasps

The wasps in New Jersey are in the same family as bees, sawflies and ants. There are numerous species of them, including hornets and yellow jackets. One thing that many of them have in common is solitude. Females tend to live and breed on their own. However, the social species build nests and have bee-like colonies.

Females lay eggs through their ovipositor or a tube-like organ. Where they lay their eggs depends on the species as well. Many lay eggs in or near a food source. Some, such as the cuckoo wasp, lay egg in other wasps’ nests. Parasitic ones lay eggs in or on other insects and the larva eventually kill their hosts.

However, the ovipositor uses a stinger for defense and to catch prey in some species, such as the Aculeata. Many are very helpful in gardens by cleaning up dead insects, harmful insects and pollinating.

How are the Wasps in New Jersey a Pest Problem?

First, unlike bees, wasps can sting repeatedly. If you’re stung on your face or neck, you may need to seek medical treatment. Call 911 if you experience side effects such as giddiness, dizziness, swelling, nausea or excruciating pain following a sting. Typically, stings wear off after 24 hours but if you experience any of the symptoms mentioned above, it could lead to a fatal anaphylactic shock. Even if you don’t have an allergic reaction to one sting, keep in mind that somewhere between 30 and 40 stings can be fatal.

If you don’t have any of the above reactions, you can easily treat your sting with a deodorant that contains aluminum. You can also use something like peppermint essential oil or anything else that has a cooling effect.

As gross as this is, they’re still capable of stinging shortly after they pass on. This is because the venom still pulsates for a short period of time even after it dies. So if you find a dead one in your home, we wouldn’t recommend picking it up without something like a work glove and a paper towel.

Social Wasp Species

The social species, which are only about a thousand, sometimes build their nests in or on the outside of building structures, such as lofts and open cavities. If a swarm of them have done so in or on your home, they can easily get in through open doors, windows, vents. They love sweet things as much as you do, so if they get into your bathroom, it’s probably because they’re attracted to sweet things like your scented soap or shower gel. They’re also attracted to bright lights.

If you turn off your lights and open your window, chances are, the wasp will probably leave on it’s own. If it doesn’t, that probably means that the nest is inside of your home structure somewhere. If this has happened to you, please call us as soon as possible.

European hornets strip the bark from the trees or shrubs as they do so and can cause serious damage to both in the process. You might notice that their nests are woody as well. As gross as this is, they create their nests by chewing and spitting out the wood fibers into a pulp. Mud daubers, on the other hand, make their tubes out of mud.

Wasp venom releases pheromones that trigger others’ aggression. When they’re triggered, they quickly swarm. Even solitary ones call for back-up in that way. This also happens when other individual or groups of them try to invade their nests. Even most animals instinctively avoid nests.

How To Get Rid of Wasps in New Jersey

Whatever you do, never swat at a wasp at or near its’ nest. Also, unless it’s abandoned, never try to take out a nest on your own. Chances are, it will end badly for you. The best thing you can do there is call us and as soon as possible. If you do find yourself near an active nest, the best thing to do is stay calm and back away slowly.

Their nests are almost never active more than once. Once the ones that built it die off, the fertilized queen almost never returns to it. The only exceptions are very large nests. Even so, that’s only if the winter is very mild any the main food source is still nearby.

If you’re planning to go on an outdoor picnic, be careful to put out only what you’re going to eat at that moment. They love fruit and your food as much as you do.

Experts warn that there is such a thing as a “drunk” worker wasp. If one happens to get hold of a piece of fermented fruit, it can get drunk on it. When they are, they’re usually even more bold than usual. Which means they’re at risk for being more aggressive than usual.

Other General Facts About the Wasps in New Jersey

The socials are the ones that have the colonies of queens, drones (or males) and workers (sterile females). As with bees, the only job of the drones is to mate with the queen. Once they do, they pass on shortly afterward. Workers’ jobs are to forage for food and help to feed the larvae. The fertilized queen is the only one who survives the winter. As soon as all the others die off, she goes into a hibernation. Once the spring weather comes around, she lays the first dozen eggs, which are the first wave of workers. So she does all of the foraging and feeding until they become adults.

One way that the wasp differs from bees is by their narrow waist, which is called a petiole. It separates their abdomen area from their thoraxes. The wasp comes in a variety of colors from yellow to brown. It’s usually the brighter colored ones that sting.

Aside from the continuous stinging ability, there are a few other ways in which they differ from bees. They don’t make honey or store food. Even though some do help pollinate, they don’t collect pollen. Bees drink liquid while wasps actually chew food.

Wasp Venom and Wasp Lifespans

Wasp venom contains several different ingredients. The primary one being protein, which is what many people have the allergic reaction to. It also contains serotonin, histamine and kinin. It’s the histamine and kinin that makes the sting painful. The latter helps to slow muscle contractions, lowers blood pressure and increases capillary absorption. That’s why it’s so effective at killing prey.

They have very limited lifespans. The workers have the shortest for up to 22 days. The drones, about a month or close to it. Finally, the queens usually live for a full year from the time that they hatch.

Like with bees, the queen wasp is usually bigger than the workers. There are two purposes for this. First, the queens are the ones that lay all the eggs. Second, they have to have a lot of fat stored for winter hibernation. As a result, they receive twice as much food as the workers and drones.

They make excellent fliers. The workers fly for hundreds of meters while searching for food. Most queens can fly hundreds of kilometers while searching for a place to nest. Their wings are made out of chitin, which is basically an extension of their skeletons covered by veins. Their wings can make up to 247 beats per second.

What They Are Feeding On

Aside from sweet things, some species also prey on invertebrates, such as spiders, ants, flies, caterpillars and even bees. This is the majority of what’s fed to the larvae. Even though they don’t make honey, some do collect honeydew by siphoning the sap directly from the tree. They do that by inserting their mouth-like parts into the trunk of the tree. In doing so, they reduce the wax-like droplets to almost pure sugar. Since they tend to reduce the sap by 90 percent for five months of the year, they compete with other species that feed off of it as well.

One interesting fact about the workers is that they literally can’t digest much of the food that they get a hold of. As a result, most of it’s passed on to the nest workers and given to the larvae or the queen. The nest workers then wait for the larvae to release their pre-digested saliva-or “soup”- and that’s what establishes the worker-larvae bond. The queens produce a pheromone that shuts down the workers’ fertility so that their behavior will stay focused and regulated.

Yes, there are some animals that do eat the wasp. Those include dragonflies, centipedes and robber flies. Some species of birds and mammals do as well. In some parts of Britain, badgers destroy whole nests to get a small buffet from the combs. Weasels and mice also like to diet on early stage nesters.

Conclusion

The wasp does a lot of good outdoors. However, if one gets trapped indoors or happens to build a nest in or near home, the situation can turn very dangerous very quickly. It means that they’re in a competition with you that neither you or they understand. As a result, aggression can quickly become mutual and it can turn into a painful medical emergency for you.

Again, please don’t try to remove an active nest on your own. Let us take care of that. If you have any reason to believe that you’re having an issue with a wasp or a nest, please contact us today.