Yellowjackets – Trapping With Bowl, Bait and Oil

I’ve described on radio how to make a monitoring trap for yellowjackets using meat bait and some cooking oil. Here’s how it works:

Get a cereal bowl, a piece of sandwich meat and some vegetable oil.

Roll the meat into a tube and spear it with three toothpicks to make a tripod to support the meat.

Put this in a shallow bowl or saucer. Pour a thin layer of vegetable oil in the container under the meat.

Set it outdoors where yellowjackets are seen.

The insects are attracted to the meat (they love protein in summer) but usually grab such a big piece that they have to drop a few inches to gain airspeed. They fall in to oil and die.

You won’t eliminate a nest this way but you can sometimes use the trap to figure out where a nest is.

Yellowjacket Control