wasps around my purplehulls

14 years ago

in my long history of gardening, this is my first year to purplehull peas. they are doing very well and we are about to make our first picking. but strangest thing,,,,,,there is constant yellow jacket activity around my plants. they land on plant to plant and are constantly busy but doing what,,,,i can't figure. they seem to land on the part of the plant where the peas are but they act like they are searching around for something but immediately fly to the next. does anyone have a clue to their attraction to the purplehull plants? i have a little of everything else in a standard spring garden but the yellowjackets are concentrated in this one area.

just curious.

marty

rogers, texas

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jimster

14 years ago

I remember yellow jackets hovering around my cowpeas last year. I think they were attracted by something sweet exuded by the plants.

Jim

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Comments (12)

shot
14 years ago
Marty, most likely they are polliating. Last year we had lots of bees (mostly bumble bees) in our peas (some purple hulls) and you could pull a pea off that they were on and they would just fly to the next. Only person that got stung was my bro-in-law's girlfriend and that was because she accidently grabbed one.
We need the bees.

Shot
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User
14 years ago
Yellow jackets are very territorial compared to a lot of other "stingy things."

1- make sure they're not hoverflies (they look live very tiny waspy things) because they're good at pest control of the baddies.

2- if they are yellow jackets and visiting they're usually (mostly) harmless unless you're near the nest or scare the crap out of them.

Here is a link that might be useful: hoverfly pictures
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In spring and early summer they pick caterpillars for their young, in late fall, they are all collecting as much nectar as they can get. They will swarm on cowpea nodes, on compost piles containing watermelon, fruit, anything sweet, in the fall. You might want to make sure that your wasps are not yellow jackets, which hover from side to side as they land. Yellow jackets will become aggressive to protect the nest or even a food source. So if a little kid bumps a nest by mistake there could be disaster. I had to burn out a yellow jacket nest this summer and then in fall the survivors swarmed a compost pile full of overripe melons and aggressively protected it. My neighbors have small children, so I sprayed the compost with Sevin and dusted it with borax. The survivors moved to swarming on the cowpeas, so I sprayed the cowpeas with Sevin and hung a soda bottle trap half full of watermelon juice with a dash of dishsoap on the trellis. When I took the vines down, the survivors moved back to the compost pile. I'd almost rather have caterpillars. In fact I did have caterpillars, in the beans and in the peppers, never seen them in either plant before. I wonder what they were.
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farmerdilla
14 years ago
Agree with nc-crn; Yellow Jackets are harmless to your plants, but they do love sweets and protein rich foods. That is why they do a number on fruits. Watch for a severe aphid infestation on your peas. Peas are very attractive to aphids, and Yellow Jackets love Honeydew which the aphids secrete.
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User
14 years ago
Yeah, in general "stingy things" visiting plants are way more concerned with the food over what's around them.

I freak friends out by poking bees on their back while feeding. The bees couldn't really care less. That said, I wouldn't recommend poking any yellow jackets or wasps, though.
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zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
14 years ago
I've noticed a lot of wasps on my yardlongs too... not surprising, given that they are just a subspecies of cowpeas. They show up as soon as flowering begins. The odd thing is, while they land on the flower stalks, it doesn't seem to be the flowers themselves that attract them.

There are knobs/pads located just below the flowers, and they appear to give off a substance that is very attractive to some insects (ants & ladybugs too). The wasps & yellowjackets feeding there are uncharacteristically passive, almost as if they were intoxicated. They don't react aggressively to my presence, and I have never been stung while picking.

For the most part, the wasps are beneficial, as are the ladybugs... so growing yardlongs to attract them is part of my pest control program.
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cozy
14 years ago
They have always been wasp magnets here. Not sure what attracts them to these but it must make them happy because the wasps could care less about you being in there with them.
Takes a bit of getting used to though ;)
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jimster
14 years ago
One morning while camping I was reading the paper, sipping coffee and absentmindedly eating a donut. I bit into the donut and was stung on the tongue by a yellow jacket who had been attracted by the donut. It was a shock, but not so painful as it might sound.

Jim
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cabrita
14 years ago
Jim just reading that was painful! ouch! I stepped on a hornet once, it bit me on the sole of my foot, that hurt!

You all have flowers on your yard longs and purple hulls already? it is in the 60s here, warm weather stuff is not happy but everything else is doing so well. My yard longs have not even decided how they want to climb the pole. It has been raining too, what a treat!
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susaneden
14 years ago
Last year, I was out watering my garden, and a yellow jacket landed on the hose nozzle, about 2 inches from my hand. He/she sat there, drinking drops of water from the nozzle, and enjoyed the ride on the hose for about 10 minutes or so :D

My sister-in-law, who hates all things with stingers, was out in the garden with me while i was doing this. She could not believe my calm, or the fact that the insect did not sting me. I told her the YJs and I had a good working relationship--I don't swat at them, they don't sting me. I provide plants attractive to them, and they deal with pests. Win-win for all of us (except the pests) lol.
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jimster
14 years ago
I think the lesson of these stories is "don't bite them and they won't bite you".

Jim
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zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
14 years ago
Wasps are also attracted to cleome flowers, which I grow throughout my garden. The benefit of this is that there is hardly a caterpillar to be found, and not many large spiders either. When I had a severe aphid infestation in one of my pepper cages, all I had to do was open it up, and the wasps were soon swarming on the aphids. I like having wasps in the garden... I just won't let them nest there.
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