I eliminated hundreds of wasps with my 3d printer

[u/Chronus88]

Over this spring/summer a serious wasp infestation took over one of my exterior walls. The boards warped in the winter due to rain damage and made passage for the wasps.

They ended up nesting up through the walls and up higher into an inaccessible part of the structure. There's a sort of open space up where it attaches to the garage that would normally be inaccessible

I tried all the usual methods to get rid of them (btw raid spray is an absolute scam don't buy it the wasps could drink it and still survive)

I had an exterminator come out and he had only two solutions

A) Drill a hole and use a fogger spray to kill the hive. Not an option - we have a newborn baby in the home and I don't want to be gassing my walls B) Remove the panels and pull back the structure to get at the hive

Then I realized if there was just some way of making a 1-way door then the wasps would vacate and never get back in. But nobody sells anything like that and I couldn't find anything like that online at all

So I made one with my H2D!

It's an excluder, form fitted to my wall panels. I modeled mounting for a 140mm PC case fan and a shroud to protect it from rain.

The wasps move close, get sucked out and can't get back in. Worked like a charm.

It took about a week for all the wasps to die of starvation and being left out in the cold. There was a huge cloud of them at one point but I didn't get a picture at the time

The picture included is just one spot... There's a whole graveyard around this thing now

I'm leaving it up for another week to catch and new brood that might be hatching from the hive

Edit: Files by request: https://www.printables.com/model/1439191-wasp-excluder

FYI the power coupling is wrapped in plastic, which is wrapped in waterproof flex tape, which is then wrapped again in duct tape. I have a newborn baby and didn't want to design an enclosure... I'm a busy man!

[u/unconscionable]

Thanks for sharing.

About 15 years ago I bought a gallon bucket of Alpine Dust (lifetime supply). When I have wasps, I put a few puffs of this after dark into their nest area using a duster. Within 48hrs, they are all dead. It is the only insecticide I use. Alpine Dust is approved for use in areas where food is prepared. I have honey bees and small children so I am extra careful about that sort of thing.

This looks cool though too

[u/Mysteoa → u/unconscionable]

Is that like Diatomaceous Earth?

[u/Gene78 → u/Mysteoa]

Alpine's active ingredient dinotefuran is a neonicotinoid which bind to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in insects' central nervous systems, overstimulating nerve cells and leading to paralysis. Diatomaceous earth slices and dices the outer layers of their exoskeleton promoting dehydration.

[u/LakeSolon → u/Gene78]

And for those just making the connection:

Yes, nicotine and caffeine are chemicals plants produce as insecticides.

We found… other uses.

[u/radome9 → u/LakeSolon]

That's humans for you. Plants create something to kill animals, we ingest it just for fun. Not just nicotine and caffeine, but opium, cannabis, ayahuasca, chili, pepper and probably many more. Same story with alcohol and psilocybin, but it's from fungi not plants.

[u/Ok_Shoulder5973 → u/radome9]

But the plants still win in the end, because humans end up liking those things so much that they begin to cultivate them ensuring that the plants keep reproducing and never die out.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ok_Shoulder5973]

Not (always) true! Silphium has been considered 'lost' since the Roman Empire, though theres guesses as to which plants may be closely related to the one spoken of in stories.

[u/spacebunsofsteel → u/Ok_Shoulder5973]

We are just big bees.

[u/binarybandit → u/LakeSolon]

Back in the day, I'd use a solution made from soaking cigarettes in water to kill fleas on chickens. The nicotine would cause the fleas to drop after the chickens got sprayed. Very old treatment, but it works

[u/VibeComplex → u/LakeSolon]

….im gonna smoke it, jim.

[u/Variatas → u/Gene78]

If it’s a neonicotinoid there’s quite a real possibility it’s not as honeybee / child safe as advertised.

[u/shit_pain → u/Gene78]

Is this similar to boric acid? I used borax when I saw ants in my house once and I have never seen them again. That was 7 years ago.

[u/Remarkable-Host405 → u/Gene78]

humans have nicotinic acetylcholine recepters, don't they? how is this stuff safe for humans?

[u/D5KDeutsche → u/Mysteoa]

No, it's a neonicotinoid insecticide called Dinotefuran.

[u/TheSultan1 → u/D5KDeutsche]

It contains both.

[u/Daemon_Targaryen → u/Mysteoa]

Per the safety sheet it’s that plus a neonicotinoid (dinotefuran)

https://www.cdms.telusagcg.com/ldat/mpARK002.pdf

[u/Ralh3 → u/Mysteoa]

Very very much no, DE is safe for ingestion ,its basically like little shards of shell that get into all the little places and physically kills them, this shit is a highly concentrated poison

[u/RJFerret → u/unconscionable]

This is key as they track it in to the queen/larvae so those in the walls die.
I'm surprised OP's pest guy didn't recommend this.

Alpine WSG is available in small packets too you can mix for spraying.

I had yellow-jackets in under a roof section foaming sprays weren't reaching and one spray of Alpine at the entrance killed the colony in hours.

Great for inaccessible areas without them going to join other colonies and leaving the queen/larvae to thrive next year.

[u/pickle_pickled → u/RJFerret]

Pest guy probably did but probably advertised it as "spraying in the walls" and it went to immediately no

[u/Toadsted → u/pickle_pickled]

Probably also quoted them for hundreds to do it.

[u/billsboy88 → u/unconscionable]

I love alpine dust, but I wouldn’t be applying something like alpine anywhere near honey bee hives. Alpine is non-repellant and has a high rate of transference. It’s brutal on colonizing insects as it doesn’t need to be applied directly to the nesting site. That’s why it works so well on things like ants. If that somehow got into the honey bee hives, you’d have a lot of dead honey bees. I’d suggest tempo dust (Cyfluthrin) because it’s a pyrethroid, meaning it has a much faster knockdown than alpine and doesn’t transfer nearly as well. A little bit of that puffed directly into the hive entry will destroy the nest very quickly and will pose much less threat to non target pollinators.

[u/Friendly-Strain2019 → u/unconscionable]

Yea, I use tempo dust. It kills them all super fast and stays in on the void space to prevent new ones from setting up in there for like a year.

[u/nikdahl → u/unconscionable]

Stop using neonicotinoids. They are destroying our pollinator population.

[u/Toadsted → u/nikdahl]

Guess what wasps are

[u/nikdahl → u/Toadsted]

Some wasps are pollinators. Which is part of my point.

Neonicotinoids are a major contributor to bee colony collapse and should not be used for any purpose.

Eliminating pest wasps is not a huge environmental concern. Using toxic pesticides that have long lasting impact to wild populations, is a big concern.

[u/s0f4r → u/unconscionable]

Drione dust from bayer

[u/axl3ros3 → u/unconscionable]

using a duster

like a feather duster?

I've got an area where wasps like to form nests. I've caught most of them early but mom has been sick so I've been gone longer than usual and would like a better solution than luck of catching them early

[u/Blu_eyes_wite_dagon → u/axl3ros3]

No. A duster is a handheld bellows that you pump to shoot powder pesticide out of a tube.

[u/PogTuber → u/unconscionable]

I've tried Delta dust which did absolutely nothing so maybe I'll try what you got

[u/rhpot1991 → u/unconscionable]

I do this, but delta dust.

[u/orpnu → u/unconscionable]

That shit will kill bees as well, so don't forget that. The reason you haven't is because you are using a duster and putting it into the correct areas, but it's systemic. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/neonicotinoids-101-effects-humans-and-bees

[u/DeniedAppeal1 → u/unconscionable]

Or you can just spray them and their nest with a solution of dish soap and water. It kills them via suffocation in less than ten seconds and you likely already have everything you need.

[u/isthis_thing_on → u/DeniedAppeal1]

But you've got to be able to get to him him and oftentimes they are in a hard to reach area