sand wasps look like the picture below but I can't tell if I have sand wasps or cicada killer wasps. The ones I have are up to 2 inches long and mostly black and white - which would be sand wasps I believe.
they're mostly solitary and mostly harmless, but what they do is burrow into the dirt at the edges of your property where sand/dirt is more easily exposed and you see piles of dirt so they're easy to spot. but because they're solitary once they get into your property they spread quickly and you'll see tons of these "nests"
So for me with a corner lot - I first noticed them at a neighbors house across the street and now they've crossed the street and infiltrated my "yard". I put yard in quotes because it's really along the curb and there are sand piles in the street.
Has anyone found a way to get rid of them? I don't want to kill them unnecessarily or with chemicals, but I also don't want them tearing up my yard and terrifying my kids and neighbors.
that was a google image search result, I've never witnessed any assaults, I would have intervened, I'm not a monster.
I know, that's the only nest/den picture I could find, but the wasps are black and white like in the top image - the nest/den look like the sand pile though. From my searches black and white wasps aren't cicada killers, they're sand wasps.
not getting close enough though for closer inspection, but I don't think there is any orange on them.
Good luck buddy.
that's exactly what has happened - the past 3 or 4 years they were at my across the street neighbors - and gradually began spreading to adjacent houses across the street.
every year around late July they'd come back (maybe once the grass begins dying or thinning) and this is the first year they made the jump across the street and now my fear is they're going to expand and come back every year.
Typically, the females do not sting anything but cicadas. Cicada killers stinging humans is not unheard of, but in any case they must be provoked. Otherwise, they are widely considered harmless. Males have no stinger.
I get them in my yard each year, and I have a few nests right now. Total non-event, IME, but they look pretty intimidating, especially this season with everyone noticing them after the "murder hornet" hysteria from earlier this spring.
Anyway, they seem to dissapear pretty quickly, in a couple of weeks.
But yes they keep coming back and do make the lawn ugly with their digging............
Their nests are really easy to find because they will have a mound of dirt outside the entrance. If you really want them gone wait until dusk (when all are back in the nest) and get right down on the hole and spray wasp and hornet spray into it, then cover with a brick or piece of wood for 1-2 days
but they're definitely black and white not yellow and white so that's why I think they're sand wasps like in the picture above and not cicada killers.
They have never come after anyone, but they're two inches long and scare the shit out of everyone.
I'll take pictures if I can today.
I have pictures of my yard and my directly across the street neighbor.
On my yard I had some 7 dust for the garden and I thought I'd give it a shot and see if it worked on these, and unfortunately I might have killed the ones in my yard (for now), I don't see any activity in my yard, but my neighbor looks like he's having landscape construction.
This is the edge of my yard:
This is my neighbors:
And here is a close of up one on the edge of my neighbors lawn tangled up with another one (mating? fighting? playing? no idea)
Now I can see some yellow and orange/red. I could have sworn the ones in my yard were white and black, but proof is in the picture I guess.
Now what do I do? Leave them? I don't want them returning next year and this is so close to the curb I doubt I get thick enough lawn here to make it inhospitable for them.
I have pictures of my yard and my directly across the street neighbor.
On my yard I had some 7 dust for the garden and I thought I'd give it a shot and see if it worked on these, and unfortunately I might have killed the ones in my yard (for now), I don't see any activity in my yard, but my neighbor looks like he's having landscape construction.
This is the edge of my yard:
This is my neighbors:
And here is a close of up one on the edge of my neighbors lawn tangled up with another one (mating? fighting? playing? no idea)
Now I can see some yellow and orange/red. I could have sworn the ones in my yard were white and black, but proof is in the picture I guess.
Now what do I do? Leave them? I don't want them returning next year and this is so close to the curb I doubt I get thick enough lawn here to make it inhospitable for them.
They are really bad this year because it is supposed to be a bad Cicada year I was told.
They are big, about 2" and loud as hell when flying
Quote:
...in those photos!
They are big, about 2" and loud as hell when flying
and they look menacing even if they're not. I used to have a sense of pride when people used to have to walk their dogs on my side of the street b/c the neighbors had all those wasps flying around. Now they just avoid our street all together, lol.
I have pictures of my yard and my directly across the street neighbor.
On my yard I had some 7 dust for the garden and I thought I'd give it a shot and see if it worked on these, and unfortunately I might have killed the ones in my yard (for now), I don't see any activity in my yard, but my neighbor looks like he's having landscape construction.
This is the edge of my yard:
This is my neighbors:
And here is a close of up one on the edge of my neighbors lawn tangled up with another one (mating? fighting? playing? no idea)
Now I can see some yellow and orange/red. I could have sworn the ones in my yard were white and black, but proof is in the picture I guess.
Now what do I do? Leave them? I don't want them returning next year and this is so close to the curb I doubt I get thick enough lawn here to make it inhospitable for them.
I meant to follow up on this... those are definitely Cicada Killers, and the two you saw fighting were males, which do not have stingers. Not much more than oversized, scary-looking houseflies.
I wouldn't exterminate them unless they were really becoming a nuisance in a high-traffic area, or their mounds are getting very unsightly.