wasps Archives | Inman-Murphy, Inc. - Pest Control & Extermination Services

Enjoy Sting-Free Summers: Stinging Insect Prevention

The arrival of summer brings with it the excitement of being able to finally spend time in your backyard, barbequing, and creating lasting memories with your loved ones. These beautiful summer days can quickly turn into a nightmare by a few stinging party crashers. Nothing ruins a fun summer afternoon quicker than a sting from a wasp or yellow jacket. These pesky stinging insects can leave you with painful stings or send some to the emergency room due to allergic reactions. Don’t spend your summer in fear of stinging insects. With proper preparation you can reclaim your outdoor space and enjoy a sting-free summer!

How to Identify Common Stinging Insects

Wasps and yellowjackets are the most common stinging insects you may encounter in your yard. Like most common household pests, they come seeking food and shelter in and around your home.

There are a few types of wasps that you may find in your yard such as mud daubers and paper wasps. Mud daubers are easily identified by their extremely long, thin waist and unique tube shaped mud nests. Paper wasps are brown in color and build papery umbrella-shaped nests, usually found hanging from tree branches or eaves of a home.
Yellow Jackets are bright yellow and black in color and have a stockier body compared to most wasps. Some yellow jacket nests will look similar to a wasp nest, hanging up high in a tree or eave but yellow jackets are also known to build nests in the ground or hollowed out areas, often in old rodent burrows. You will commonly see yellowjackets at your outdoor gathering. They seek out meat and sugary foods, whereas wasps prefer over-ripened fruit and flowers.

Preventing Stinging Insects in Your Yard

It is important to be proactive in preventing stinging insects in your yard. Below are a few tips to keep these stinging pests away!

Cover Food: Yellowjackets are attracted to meat and sugary foods. Make sure to cover food while dining outdoors to keep these party crashers away.
Pick Up Fallen Fruit: Fresh fruit from your fruit trees is not only your favorite snack; stinging insects will seek out over ripened or decaying fruit that may have fallen from your trees. If you have fruit trees, make sure to regularly check for and remove any fallen fruit.
Remove Old Nests: Most stinging insects will abandon their nests in the winter. Dispose of these nests while they are inactive. If the nest is active, many people choose to use canned spray treatments. Be extremely cautious when using these DIY methods. Wasps and yellowjackets are aggressive when threatened and are able to sting multiple times. Removing active nests is best left to professionals.
Close Garbage Cans: You will often find stinging insects buzzing around garbage cans looking to scavenge thrown out food or sugary snacks. To prevent these little dumpster divers from hanging out in your yard, make sure to securely close garbage cans.

Professional Extermination: The Safest Solution

Attempting to remove a wasp or yellow jacket nest on your own can prove ineffective and hazardous, potentially resulting in swarms of aggressive stinging insects. The best and safest way to ensure your yard is free of stinging insects is to enlist the help of a professional extermination service like those from Inman-Murphy Termite & Pest Control. Our expert technicians have both the experience and equipment to safely and effectively remove and stinging pests from your yard. Enjoy a sting-free summer this year and contact us today!

Common Late Summer Pests

You might think that the late summer means the end of the pest problems you’ve been facing since early spring, but some pests are made for these conditions. With the right amount of warmth and plenty of people participating in outdoor activities, many kinds of insects and animals can find a meal or a suitable place to stay. If you want to make sure that pests don’t take over the last month of your summer, you have to be consciously preventative in your routines. Read on to learn about pests to avoid in Mid-South TN‘s late summers with Inman-Murphy, Inc.!

Common Late Summer Pests in Mid-South TN

There really is no season in which you can avoid pest problems outright. The late summer is a deceptively pest-ridden season because we often think of late spring and early summer as being the most problematic. However, these pests stick around to capitalize on the lingering warmth:

Bees and wasps: Bees, wasps, and many other kinds of stinging insects take advantage of heightened outdoor human activity during the late summer. They will not hesitate to stop by your cookout for a free meal or build a hive in your yard for a consistent and close by food source.
Ticks: These parasitic pests thrive in the warmth and growth that sticks around into August and September. Walking through tall grass or dense vegetation could put you in tick trouble.
Wildlife: Wild animals, especially those that hibernate during the winter, are out and about all summer looking for food and safe places to stay. Raccoons, possums, and squirrels are common offenders in the late summers here in Mid-South TN.
Mosquitoes: If mosquitoes are able to develop a consistent breeding population around your property, they can remain a serious nuisance all the way until temperatures drop below 50°F.

Preventing Pests in the Late Summer

While it should be stressed that severe pest infestations should always be taken care of by an expert, there are a few pertinent strategies you can try on your own to keep pest presence on your property at a minimum. Try the following:

Keep a tidy yard: Trimming your trees and shrubs, quickly disposing of grass clippings and piles of vegetation, and decluttering in general will all discourage pests from looking for shelter in your yard.
Look for cracks: Check around the outside of your home and structures on your property regularly for openings in roofing, siding, foundation, or around windows.
Guard your trash: taking out your garbage regularly and using sealable lids on your outdoor trash bins can prevent many kinds of pests — most notably, wildlife.
Eliminate standing water: Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water, so covering up or pouring out any that you find around your yard can cause mosquitoes to look elsewhere to breed and feed.

Expert Help with Summer Pests

If you think you’ve done everything you can to prevent pests without success, it’s time to reach out to your local exterminators. We are proud to employ only licensed, certified, and highly trained technicians here at Inman-Murphy, Inc.. Our pest experts have seen every kind of problem that develops in our area, so we can efficiently and effectively put together a plan to eliminate pest presence and keep your property pest-free for good. Contact us today for a free quote!

bees mosquitoes opossums raccoons squirrels ticks wasps

Keeping Bees and Wasps Away Naturally

A bee hovers in front of a puple bellflower

If you’re spending time outside in the summer, you probably aren’t alone: wasps and bees are active in the summer in the Memphis Metro. A run-in with wasps or bees can be annoying, painful or even cause a serious allergic reaction. But how can you keep wasps and bees away without loading up on bug spray? Read on to learn how to naturally repel bees and wasps while you’re outdoors this summer!

Which Plants Attract Bees and Wasps?

Since bees and wasps are pollinators, it’s no surprise they’re attracted to flowering plants. Here are some species of plants that bees and/or wasps are particularly fond of:

Black-eyed Susan
Honeysuckle
Lantana
Lilacs
Perennial Yarrow
Poppies
Pale Purple Coneflower
Sweet Fennel
Wisteria
Queen Anne’s Lace
Sedum
Snapdragon
Sunflowers

If any of these plants are growing near your home, consider relocating them further away on your property. Especially if they’re close to an outdoor space that you use often.

Which Plants Repel Bees and Wasps?

Just because they’re pollinators doesn’t mean bees and wasps like all flowering plants. The scent of the following plants repel bees and wasps:

Basil
Citronella
Geraniums
Marigolds
Peppermint
Spearmint
Thyme
Wormwood

Just as moving plants that attract stinging insects helps keep them away from your home, so does adding plants that repel them. Particularly, if they’re near outdoor spaces like patios.

Stinging Insects and Food

Whether it’s barbecues, picnics or s’mores, eating outside is a quintessential part of summer. This can be an issue because stinging insects are attracted to food. However, there are steps you can take to reduce the chance that an uninvited guest with a stinger will ruin your outdoor eating experience:

Pack up and throw away food and trash as soon as possible after finishing.
When you put food or food-soiled trash in a trash can, close the lid securely.
Wasps love sugary drinks. Close or cover your beverage to keep them out.

Bees and wasps are attracted to many types of foods and ingredients. However, like with plants, there are some food items that repel stinging insects, including:

Bay Leaves
Cinnamon
Cloves
Cayenne Pepper
Garlic
Sliced Cucumber
Vinegar

Since these can be found in most grocery stores and are inexpensive (often less expensive than a store-bought insect spray), they make a practical all-natural pest repellent. Just pour, slice or sprinkle them into a container that you keep near you or your outdoor space.

How to Keep Bees & Wasps Away with Essential Oils

A more portable and less passive way to keep stinging insects away naturally is to make a pest repellent spray using essential oils. Bees and wasps dislike the smell of these essential oils:

Citronella oil
Clove oil
Eucalyptus oil
Geranium oil
Peppermint oil
Rosemary oil

Simply combine essential oil and water at a ratio of two drops of essential oil per ounce of water to make a natural insect repellent. Pour the mixture it in a spray bottle and you’re all set.

Best Bee and Wasp Exterminators in the Memphis Metro

Natural pest repellents can help keep wasps or bees away from your home. However, they won’t be enough to deal with a serious infestation. In that case, you may need to hire a local exterminator to get rid of the bees or wasps on your property. Inman-Murphy has been providing exterminator services in the Memphis Metro since 1999. If you’re looking for safe, effective bee, wasp and hornet removal, call us today for a free quote!

bees wasps

Best Ways to Avoid a Wasp Sting

Wasps have developed a bad reputation around Mid-South TN. Although some people think of wasps as bees’ unproductive and temperamental cousins, these insects are actually very important pollinators and even better at controlling populations of agricultural pests. They’ve earned the right to get a bit defensive if you mess with their nests! The more unfortunate of us know what it’s like to be stung by wasps repeatedly, even when you’ve done nothing intentional to disrupt their business. If you’re wondering what you can do to prevent wasp stings, read on for advice from the expert wasp control technicians at Inman-Murphy, Inc.

Avoiding Wasp Stings

The most effective way to avoid wasp stings is to keep wasps from building nests in your yard in the first place. Here are a few ways you can do this on your own without any pest control products or experience:

Be careful with your food. Don’t leave out sweet or protein-rich foods and drinks for too long.
Toss your food, containers, and drinks in sealable bins
Maintain your yard to keep overgrown grass, plants, and trees from providing prime nesting sites.

If wasps have already started building nests in your yard, you have to be careful not to make yourself a target for stings. Here are some ways we recommend you protect yourself from them:

Be cautious around their nests. Moving slowly and carefully will lessen your chances of stings
Stay still if a wasp flies up to you to check you out
Don’t swat at wasps. They will quickly become angered and signal to their friends for help
If running away is your last resort, do so in a straight line without waving your arms.

How to Deal with a Wasp Sting

It can be easier than we would like to accidentally anger a wasp. Sometimes, they’ll sneak up on you and sting you without any prior warning. Here’s how you can ease your symptoms if you’ve been stung:

Make a cold compress using an ice pack or a rag soaked in cold water
Take ibuprofen or another over-the-counter pain reliever
Use an antihistamine to help with swelling around the site of the sting

If you or someone else starts to experience faintness, difficulty breathing, nausea, or swelling of the face and mouth after a sting, call an ambulance right away. These are common symptoms of anaphylaxis, a serious form of allergic reaction.

Removing Wasp Nests in Mid-South TN

It might be tempting, but you should never try to remove a wasp nest on your own. Wasp nests often host more individuals than you would imagine, so disturbing their nest can lead to a barrage of stings. Instead, reach out to your local wasp nest removal experts. Our technicians at Inman-Murphy, Inc. are trained in multiple methods of effective, harmless wasp removal. We can assess your situation to find the reasons that wasps are nesting and help you prevent further construction in the future. For a free quote, contact us today!

wasps