While you can get rid of wasps using chemicals such as an insecticide spray or powder, perhaps you aren’t interested in using a commercial product to kill them.
Maybe you simply want to ward them off and keep them from flying around you in summer without exposing yourself or the wasps to chemical products. There are many options to help you repel wasps from your backyard.
Wasps don’t like aromatic herbs that you can grow in your garden such as fresh spearmint, thyme and basil. Wasps also tend not to like marigolds and geraniums among other plants you can add to your garden. You can also seal cracks and small entrances around the home to prevent wasp entry.
Here are some additional thoughts regarding how to prevent a wasp infestation and how to repel wasps naturally if needed.
How to keep wasps away from your home naturally
Wasps are attracted to a number of different scents as well as small cracks and openings that they can get inside. In that regard, do the following to keep wasps away from your home:
- Add smells that wasps hate. Wasps don’t like strong herbs such as fresh spearmint, thyme, bay, basil, cinnamon, lemongrass, peppermint oil and cloves. They also don’t like citronella and eucalyptus. Some of these you can grow in your backyard. Others can be left outside your home or burned (citronella) in candles or torches.
- Eliminate smells that wasps like. Wasps are attracted to certain smells. They like fresh and rotting fruits which are sweet. They also like open cans of soda, fruit juice, fallen and rotting fruit from fruit trees and other sweet foods. Getting rid of these sources can help you ward off wasps.
- Add plants that wasps hate. Wasps aren’t fans of wormwood, marigold, mint, basil, penny royal, or geranium so consider growing one or more of them in your backyard.
- Create a sprayable solution that wasps hate. Solution 1: Mix 1 tsp of dish liquid add it to 2 cups of water. Solution 2: Mix equal parts of apple cider vinegar, mint and witch hazel. Each solution can be sprayed on nests or infestations to kill wasps. Wear protective clothing.
- Create a solution that attracts and kills wasps. Wasps like sugar but hate vinegar. Get an old plastic soda bottle and cut the top off. Fill the bottle with a solution of equal parts water and white vinegar and add a cup of sugar. Just enough to fill the bottom part of the bottle, perhaps 2″ – 3″ deep. Then take the top of the bottle you cut off, invert it, and stick on top of the bottle so that the small opening of the bottle is inside. The idea is that wasps enter the large opening of the bottle from the sugar smell and get trapped in the bottle and can’t escape. The vinegar may also kill them if they consume the solution. Make sure you put the solution away from where you normally walk or sit however.
- Seal open entry points. Wasps looks for small cracks in doors and windows, bricks, open pipes, eavestroughs and other small entrances that they can fly inside. Seal them with whatever is appropriate: caulking, tape, a metal screen, mesh, etc.
- Remove nests quickly. I’ve noticed small wasp nests at the top corner of my backyard sliding door, on tree branches, on the top of my garage door and inside the door well of my car. With care, you can knock a small nest off with a broom or other long handled device without being stung if you’re careful, before the nest grows. You may also spray nests off with a strong blast of water from a hose. Wear protective clothing.
Wasps don’t like aromatic herbs
You probably have at least some of the aromatic herbs in your kitchen spice rack that tend to repel wasps.
Among others, herbs that wasps don’t like the smell of include the ones we mentioned earlier:
- spearmint
- thyme
- bay
- basil
- lemongrass
Planting one or more of these in and around your background means you not only keep wasps away from you in the summer, you get some nice herbs for free instead of having to buy them.
Another suggestion is to cut a fresh lemon in half and place cloves in each cut part. Wasps don’t like lemon or cloves.
What doesn’t work to keep wasps away from your home
Fake wasp nests can be purchased that people believe will ward off wasps. They look exactly like a real wasp nest and can be hung in a prominent place in your backyard. Some people claim that blowing up a plain brown paper bag and hanging it in your backyard to resemble a wasp’s nest will also ward wasps away.
The theory is that wasps are territorial and won’t build a nest if they see the fake wasp nearby. The long and the short of it is that they tend not to work.
There have been cases where wasps will build a nest inside the fake nest or nearby regardless.
A paper bag won’t repel wasps either because they tend not to be scared off by the shape of an object such as a paper bag. And since wasps can use paper for building a nest, they might just utilize it for that purpose rather than being scared of it.
If you have a large backyard and put up a fake nest or paper back at the back of your property, there is nothing stopping a real nest from popping up near your patio 20′ or more away.
Wasps often build small nests outside back doors or on garage doors, in the ground or even inside the door well of a car. They don’t need much space for a small nest and a fake one or paper bag won’t scare them away.
Save your money and try something else as suggested above.
If all else fails and you have a bad infestation that is dangerous and can’t be removed, consult a professional pest service.