Hi there,
Wondering if I could ask your opinion about a wasp or something making a nest outside my house.
I have an old hole in the outside portion of my brick house. (1/4 inch in diamater and several inches deep)
One day I noticed something covered the hole with perfectly round cut pieces of leaves covering the hole in the brick. I picked at the hole trying to figure out what was inside but i never could spot anything. A few days later the hole was covered up again with this pefectly cut round leaves again.
Any idea what i could be dealing with by chance??
Thanks in advance for any help.
It sounds like you have leaf cutter bees. These solitary bees will many times find the drain holes, also known as weep holes, which are built into brick walls to allow water to drain away from the house. Leaf cutter bees will lay eggs and plant food in these lines changing it to a type of nest. Next they will seal them off with cut up leaves as described in our LEAF CUTTER BEE CONTROL article.
One or two leaf cutter bees doing this probably isn’t a major problem. But if you don’t watch the activity carefully, it could grow and when these holes gets sealed tight, water won’t be able to properly drain. This can cause moisture problems and at some point, leaks in the home.
To prevent this from happening, spray the holes with the CYPERMETHRIN CONCENTRATE. These bees hate this stuff and will avoid treated areas. If you only have a few holes to treat, use the D-FORCE AEROSOL. It’s handier since it’s ready to spray and requires no mixing.
julie says
August 10, 2015 at 10:11 amI have bees yellow jackets going into the drainage holes in my bricks. What do I do? I cant let my dog out in the back yard anymore they sting her. Please, any suggestion? I plugged the hole where they were going only for them to pick another hole. Plugged few of them. Help.
Tech Support says
August 10, 2015 at 10:37 amJulie,
If you review our yellowjacket control article, you’ll learn about a dust we carry called Drione. Get a container along with one of our hand dusters. Before your order arrives, be sure to “unplug” any holes you sealed. This way you’ll know where they’re active, which holes you definitely need to treat, etc. Once the dust arrives, load the duster with Drione and prepare to treat later in the evening.
Treating will actually be quite easy. Do this in the evening, just before dark, when they’ll be back in the nest and ready to rest for the night. All you’ll need to do is have already identified all the holes you want to treat (and maybe a few more just be sure you get them all covered). If done properly, you should be able to knock them out with one thorough application.
To treat, just “puff” 4-5 times into each hole and move on. The Drione dust page as well as the hand duster page has videos showing how to do this so I suggest you view them.
The dusting should barely take 3-5 seconds. And if you move quickly, you should be able to get all the holes treated in less than a minute. At that point you can leave and with any luck, cured the problem. Check it out the next day but if you applied enough, it will have killed them overnight. Now if any are still active, do the same type of dusting where you still see them using any holes you could have missed. Do this the following evening and that should do it for sure.
Here are direct links to the information and products listed above:
Yellow Jackets: http://bugspray.com/article/yellowjackets.html#yellow-jacket-dust
Drione: http://www.bugspraycart.com/insecticide/dust/drione-dust
Hand Duster: http://www.bugspraycart.com/equipment/dusters/crusader
Give us a call if you need more help. Our toll free is 1-800-877-7290 and we’re open 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Mon-Thur; 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM Friday and 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Saturday, Eastern Standard Time.
Jonathan
Customer Care
http://bugspray.com
1-800-877-7290
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