It's pre-wasp season. Already?

Yesterday I drove around with a couple of litres of my custom wasp attractant. I'm sure everyone has their own method and recipe. Mine is 1 litre of water per 1 kg sugar. Throw in some diced apple, bring to boil. Let cool. Add a few glugs of vinegar and one sachet of yeast. I also slurp in some red wine, on the rare occasion we have something left in a bottle. Feeds hundreds!

I use 2 litre plastic milk cartons, and 1 litre clear plastic water bottles. Last year I started using 5 litre plastic vinegar flagons. They were very effective and I've kept all the flagons ( from making balsamic vinegar dressing).

In theory the containers should be capped, with a small hole drilled in the side. The wasps go in, attracted by the sugary scent, and can't get out. I've found it seems to work anyway if I just leave the lid off the container. Bees don't get trapped, as the yeast and vinegar puts them off. We do catch fruit fly, too. That's not really a problem, is it!?

Most of last year's containers are still there, still with last year's syrup and their catch of wasps. But over a year, sugary goo and insects in a clear container exposed to the sun....there's a lot of decomposition going on. And I forgot later in the season the bait changes to some sort of meaty/protein enticement.

At the moment the sugary mix is aimed at wasp queens, who are out and about setting up this season's nests. In a couple of months, the nests that get going will be churning out hungry wasps, who are more interested in protein. Then the bait changes. So, what's leftover from last year in the bottles isn't solidified sugar syrup and wasps carcasses, its....mince meat, stock, chicken flesh and bones. Still parked in the sun for a year, still decomposing. And it has gone off....

Emptying the bottles out, what comes out is a red jelly, mostly one piece, like some sort of monstrous, pink kombucha scobey. It's solid, almost, a gelatinous lump, and it makes a "schluu-schlurr-schlurrrp!" noise as it wobbles out. More than once the blob flicked it's tail as it dropped, and tiny red sticky droplets of jelly splashed on my arm. Gah!

Anyway, the job is done, for now. I walked around this evening with the dogs, at dusk, with a torch. By shining a light under the bottle you get a clear view of what's inside...the best one, by the river, had 5 queens in it.

Worth doing.....