Yellow Jacket Activity Heats Up

You many have noticed that yellow jacket activity is beginning to increase. A hot summer may be at least partially responsible for increased visibility of the stinging insect. Wasps and yellow jackets are producing queens that will be overwintering, so they are in search of protein-rich food. Their nests can be in the ground, under an eave, or inside a crack in a rock wall. Oregon Department of Agriculture entomologist and pesticide expert Rose Kachadoorian explains
Kachadoorian: “We’ve had a lot of hot weather. Whether there has been any kind of change in their food supply. For example, you can have a lot of insects that are feeding on grasses that normally would be green and those grasses are down. It is possible in some areas that we are having a reduction in food supply.”
A lot of people may think anything that buzzes and stings is a bee. But there is a big difference between wasps or yellow jackets and the common bees still busy pollinating this time of year. Honeybees and bumblebees are not the ones coming after your dinner plate.
Kachadoorian: “Sometimes people spraying their flowering trees and shrubs because they see what they think are bees on there and a lot times they are bees — they are bumble bees, honey bees and native bees — and they are not yellow jackets.”