Yellow Jackets evicted from winter home

[Mikendebbie]

This may be a first...but how did they get inside?

We have not been anywhere in the RV since early January. It's just been sitting here with the slides in. I had been out there a time or two and noticed a few dead yellow jackets on the floor. I figured they flew in one of the times I had the door open...no big deal. Today DW asked me to go look inside the RV and see if we have any "clorox wipes" out there (since all the stores are currently sold out of hand sanitizer, etc. etc.). It was a warm 82* here today.

I ran the slides out and noticed a few more yellow jackets (small paper wasps) on the floor and a couple flying around in the living room. I swatted them both with our fly swatter. Then I went up front to the bathroom and there was more dead on the floor and about 30 or more sun bathing on the shower walls under the shower skylight. Normally when I find a single wasp inside our S&B I catch them in a glass jar and let them go outside. But there was way too many to try to herd them out the door, and they were not too happy to see me, and I am not a fan of wasp stings. I got some insect spray and killed them all. Seems like there was close to 100 when I was done picking up dead yellow jackets and throwing them into a plastic box (see pic).

All the windows are closed and the skylights are closed. How the heck did they get in there?

By the way - years ago DW and I nicknamed our place in the country "Yellow Jacket Farm" because we seem to grow them nearly as successfully as we grow our weeds...see address sign.

[DQDick]

They like propane so look there first. We've had them in propane tank area when we had a small leak on the regulator. I helped a friend get them out of her furnace area and we have another friend that had them in their water heater area. All of those areas have ways to access the basement and from there inside.

[mtlakejim]

When I was young, lighting struck a pine tree and split it in front of our house late in the fall. We cut it down a few weeks later and the cracks were filled full of all kinds of wasps and yellow jackets. Apparently when they are getting ready to go dormant in the winter that's what they do. Look for a tight area and try to insulate themselves from the cold best they can. I am sure the crevices around an idle RV are an inviting target if that theory is correct.\


After saying this I looked it up:
Wasp colonies die off during the winter months; not because of the cold but because of starvation for a lack of food. Only sexually mated queens over winter by hibernating. Queens will hibernate in crevices and sheltered places. Most of them will die.

[BB_TX]

Yellowjacket traps work really well. Within a very short time of hanging one outside they will start entering the trap and drowning. Might hang one inside until you are sure they are all gone. Home Depot has them along with other stores.

[dadnjesse]

That's what you say about mice, how do they get in. Yellow jackets are a lot smaller than mice.