What Kills Wasps?

With summer comes the wasp, one of the most annoying and feared flying insects. Wasps sting many Americans every year, and wasps can become a real problem in and around homes and gardens, feeding on human food and garbage. There are few natural wasp predators, so it is up to homeowners to kill wasps. There are several homemade and commercial sprays and poisons that can kill wasps.

There are a variety of insect and wasp sprays on the market that you can buy from your local hardware store. These sprays work in one of two ways. One kind of spray kills wasps on contact, while the other spray stays on the wasp so it takes the poison back to the nest and spreads it to others. For individual wasps, use the spray that kills on contact. For larger infestations, use the other type of spray to kill as many wasps as possible.

Not everyone likes to use chemical sprays in the home, so many homemade remedies have emerged. One such remedy is to cut off the top of a soda bottle and fill it with soapy water. Place the cut-off section of the bottle upside down on top of the bottle to act as a funnel. When a sweet ingredient such as sugar is added to the funnel, wasps will be attracted to it and enter the funnel. The wasps will be unable to escape and will fall into the soapy water and drown.

Wasp nest destroyers are available online and from many hardware stores, but for effective nest destruction, it may make sense to call in a professional pest control company. Pest controllers will be equipped with long lances that fire insecticidal powder into nests under the force of compressed carbon dioxide, killing all wasps inside the nest. This should be performed at night when wasps are inactive, reducing the chance they will sting.

For individual wasps, use a fly swatter or rolled-up newspaper to kill them. It is a cheap, safe, chemical-free, and immediate solution to a small nuisance.