Having a wasp nest in your garage can make you feel trapped. Social wasps that live in colonies are more aggressive about defending themselves and their nest than solitary wasps. Aggressive social wasps may feel threatened if you get too close, so you may be in danger of getting stung any time that you go out to your car. Wasp removal can deal with an existing nest, but there are things you can do to prevent wasps from moving into your garage in the first place.

Get Rid of Food Sources

Animals such as wasps are driven to seek out food, preferably from sources that are reliable and easily accessible. Once they find such a source, it is difficult to keep them from it as they will resist many deterrents. Conversely, if you remove the food source, they may no longer have a reason to hang around.

Wasps are attracted to things that are sweet and sugary. One of their favourite foods is rotten fruit. Therefore, if you have a fruit tree on your property near the garage, you should clean up the fruit that falls as soon as possible. However, wasps are also omnivores and may be attracted by the grease drippings clinging to your grill. You can prevent your grill from attracting wasps by storing it properly after cleaning it thoroughly.

Perform Regular Maintenance

Wasps like to make nests in small openings that hide their location. On a routine basis, about once a month, perform an inspection of your garage, paying particular attention to any cracks or holes that wasps may use to build nests. First, check that there is not currently a nest there, and then repair the opening so that the wasps can’t get in. If there is already a wasp nest in a hole or crack in the garage, you should call pest control in Markham to remove it before you can make the repair.

Place Repellent Plants Around the Garage

Wasps rely on their sense of smell to find food. Therefore, they do not like strong-smelling plants as they interfere with their aerial reconnaissance. You can beautify the area around your garage while helping to keep wasps away by cultivating plants like eucalyptus, spearmint, thyme, and citronella around it. These plants can also be used in recipes and herbal remedies, including natural mosquito repellent that contains no harmful chemicals such as DEET and yet, has comparable effectiveness. Mosquitoes do not like these plants and their derivatives either, for the same reason that wasps dislike them.

Clean up the Pheromone Trail

Wasps do not only use their sense of smell to find food; they also use it to communicate with one another. They secrete chemicals called pheromones that are essentially coded messages to other wasps. There are different pheromones that wasps secrete in different situations, but when they build a nest, they secrete a pheromone that essentially says “home.” This may encourage future generations of wasps to build nests in the same place.

The pheromone trail isn’t visible, but if there is an old nest on your property, you can assume the trail is also still there. Nevertheless, it is simple to remove it by scrubbing the area thoroughly with soap and hot water after making sure that the old nest has been removed.

Some people put up a fake nest where the old one was, the rationale being that wasps are territorial and don’t want to compete with another colony. However, this only works if you first remove the pheromone trail. Otherwise, the fake nest may only encourage the wasps by letting them know that this is a good place to build a nest.

Contact Truly Nolen for Wasp Removal

Because of the risk of getting stung, wasp removal should only be attempted by professionals. We remove the nest safely and effectively. Find out more about our species-specific process.