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While I was out gardening, I saw a wasp fly through a small hole beside my basement window and into my basement. Then later, I saw five more enter through two other holes (two in part of my AC, three in my fireplace exhaust area.)

The exhaust area looks like this, but with four small holes in the metal plates where it attaches to the wall. That's where the wasps go in.

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I taped up the basement hole as a temporary stop-gap. My questions are:

  • What should I use as a permanent seal?
  • Should I seal all the wasp entrance holes?

More importantly, what do they want and how do I get rid of them? I assume there's something in the house (food or a nest) that they're after. I can't find it, and don't know how to look for it.

I would like prevention (no more wasps coming) over protection (spraying all the entrance holes with bug killer) if possible.

Tester101
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ashes999
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5 Answers5

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It MAY have been a carpenter bee. They look like big bumble bees, and are good to pollinate plants. However they will do a great deal of damage with the galleries they build, gradually eating away a lot of wood. Don't let them get a foothold or you will truly see a great deal of damage done.

A carpenter bee will drill a hole that is perfectly circular. They like cedar, and go for places like fascia boards and soffits. Then they turn, and will drill galleries just under the surface of the wood.

A symptom of carpenter bees is that you have woodpeckers hammering on your house. They will find the galleries, and can hear the echo as they tap against a hollow spot.

If it looked like a wasp, then it still has a nest there. A wasp will not just wander into a hole. It has a reason to go in there.

No matter what it is, I would suggest dusting the hole with an insecticide. (Delta Dust seems to work well for me. I use a bulb to inject the dust into a hole. Carpenter bees are not aggressive, but then stand well back, in case these are more aggressive wasps or hornets.)

If you find carpenter bees tumbling from the nest, wait until they are all dead. The last nest I got rid of had 15 (LARGE) bees in it. I had to repeatedly dust it until they all were dead. Then you need to clean out the galleries (I use a Rotozip tool for this) and fill them with caulk or Bondo, as otherwise the bees will just re-inhabit next year. And if you just fill the entrance hole, a hungry woodpecker may still find that nest.

Once you manage to eradicate the nest, yearly spraying will prevent them from building new nests. They will just find other places to live, NOT in your home.

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Get a product like HotShot for killing wasps. Foam up the mouth of the nest. It will likely finish the job.

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This year both yellow jackets, paper wasps and bald faced hornets have been horrible at my farm. We recently found a great way to get rid of them without hurting the good Bee's. It takes 2 paper or plastic cups, bee attracting liquid. And a small amount of hamburger (or other raw ground meat) and last some advantage flee and tic powder. Make a medium meatball and mix the flee and tic killer into the meatball. Poke holes in 1 cup put the meatball in that. Put some attractant in the other cup (I used the cotton ball that came with the attractant it only takes a little bit) put the cup with the holes in the cup with the attractant. Place where animals won't get it. I put a wire mesh around mine so the bees can fly in but the dogs and cats cant get it. After 4 days we had no bees, we have close to a dozen traps around the farm and were emptying them several times a week. The bees take the poisoned meat to there nest and it kills them, we will be doing this later in the fall as they said fall and spring will wipe out nests for good. Hope this helps on getting rid of bad bees it has worked for us.

Ed Beal
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seal the holes with the expandable foam. The wasps nest are made of paper and are not a problem to leave them in your wall.

C Fella
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(I would have made this as a comment but I don't think I CAN comment)

Regarding where the nest might be - how thick is the wall? If there is more than just that brick layer then the nest might be inside the wall. It might not be very big. They can make a nest anywhere they can get to. I would say that if there are wasps (or bees, or whatever), and multiple of them, going into small holes, then there would be a nest of some description. If they were searching for food they'd be doing it out in the open. The way you describe it, it sounds like they know where they're going, so they're probably going home.

There are many types of wasps, so could you describe it at all? This may help identify it and thus what kind of nest it might be making, if any.

If you seal the holes with some kind of filler (anything really that won't wash away) then the wasps won't be able to get in or out and the ones in the nest (if there is one) will eventually die of hunger. Assuming they are in the wall and there isn't a way out into the basement, in which case that might not be so good.

standgale
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