Killer on the Loose

While working on the mower gas tank, some of those pesky yellow jackets buzzed me and not liking them anyway (they are terrible enemies of honeybees) I decided to take a little break and get even. I cobbled together a yellow jacket trap.

The first step was gathering the material. An empty fruit juice bottle and some scrap 3/4" plastic pipe.

The bottle measured about 4-1/4" across.

I figured to cut the pipe about 1/2" longer. In retrospect, I should have made it about 1" longer, but that will show up later.

A 3/8" hole was drilled through one side at the center.

A Sharpie can be a tinker's best friend. Never leave {your} home without one. The holes through the bottle should be marked on both sides.

Just like you learned in kindergarten, stay inside the lines. I have cut these too big in the past and ended up sealing them with hot-melt glue.

Pushing the pipe through the holes (nice, tight fit here), I discover that I should have allowed some extra length on the pipe because the plastic bottle sides flex liberally. I cut some narrow strips of duct tape and wrapped the ends of the pipe to make them big enough to keep them from sliding into the bottle.

Now for some 1/16" vent holes. We need to allow the scent from the lure to get out. Note the duct tape wrapped around the tube ends. In retrospect, I think it would be smarter to put the vent holes just above the pipe; the yellow jackets spend too much time flying around the vent holes when they could be busy dying.

I had some old yellow jacket lure from a while back. It would be applied to a chunk of cotton cloth (old t-shirt) and hung inside the bottle with fishing line.

All set up and ready to go. Next to it is a trap Jesse gave me. He recommended using grape Kool-Aid as a lure. For some reason, I think that might be more effective than the commercial lure.

Yup. it works. I think a "whiff of grape" might be better. Maybe I'll try some grape pop.