Wasps are starting to become active

Wow, the first half of the month of March 2016 was pretty spectacular with lots of sunny days and mild temperatures. I went skiing on March 9^th and I think the temperature was in the mid 60’s that day. So I guess we can dig out that old cliché about this most fickle of winter months ‘in like a lamb’, but boy is it’s sure going out like a lion. Since my epic spring ski outing, we’ve had rain, snow, ice, more rain, and yes you guessed it more rain.  Even the clear days have felt more like February! Now all we need is an April fool’s day blizzard to cap things off! Despite all this, lots of calls are coming in for paper wasps as well as carpenter ants. Just the other day I treated an attic for a client who had noticed paper wasps congregating around the gable vent on the south facing end of the house. He’d gone up there to store some items and noticed they had begun to fly toward the light fixtures. For a little pest ID refresher, there are two species of paper wasps (Polistes sp.) common in New England. One is the European paper wasp Polistes dominula  which is banded (yellow/black) and often mistaken for a yellow jacket while the slightly larger native Northern paper wasp Polistes fuscatus is reddish brown to dark brown in color.  The ones waking up in my client’s attic were the northern type.  He was alarmed that he might have a ‘nest’ somewhere in his attic and I explained to him that these wasps commonly enter buildings during the fall and were simply using the attic for an overwintering site and looking soon to get outside.  Because he doesn’t want to share his home with wasps he signed up for our semi annual service.  Don’t let pests live in your home ‘rent free’, call Colonial Pest Control today!