Wasps

We have had a week of fine sunny weather here in the UK ..very welcome.
But! The downside is the wasps that keep getting into the workshop..I suppose attracted by the smell of sawdust..I caught a bunch of em starting to build a nest in the corner of the roof ceiling yesterday chewing up the insulation boards but I soon sorted them out...I discovered that CA glue activator is an excellent repellent one squirt of that and they head out the door faster than they came in

Good work Ken! Good use of CA accelerator if I ever heard of one. Yes, nasty stuff. Don't let those nasty wasps get the upper hand! I score this one: Ken Tims 1, wasps null (0).

Let us know how long they stay way.

Another discovery with CA accelerator..it kills dandelions and other weeds growing on the crazy paving..they turn black and shrivel up within 24 hours of application.

And what exactly is CA accelerator? Well it's pretty simple, it's is sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) , water and acetone or other water soluble volatile solvent. The baking soda is alkeline which neutralizes the acid CA and allows the polymers to quickly bond. Pretty simple. It is probably the acetone that is killing the weeds. And the wasps.

Just a tip here for what it is worth. Spray the nest real early in the morning before they have woken and are all in the nest .
You dont want to spray the nest when most of them are out .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdbM6ekEQzY&ab_channel=GoodStuffExperiments

try this burns their wings off and cannot fly after ya

sequoia said:

Don't let those nasty wasps get the upper hand!

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Wasps get a bad rap - they're pollinators and they take out the really nasty bugs. Unless they're in the way where they'll cause problems it's generally best to leave them bee. Not welcome in the workshop though!

yakka said:

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That's even less welcome in the workshop! Eep!

Yes! they do get bad press...but youve got to love their little innocent faces .. especially when they sting you.

Please don't spray dandelions, it is death to bees,and we need bees!

LarryS said:

Please don't spray dandelions, it is death to bees,and we need bees!

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Just out of interest, when you say not to spray dandelions as it will kill bees, are you saying the bees will get poisoned and die, or that Ken should keep the dandelions to provide food for bees?

I was reaching for some fruit in the grocery store once and (wearing a tank top) at the moment I was bringing my arm back along side my body a wasp decided to sly in between my arm and body. Naturally there was not a lot of room left so it stung me to let me know it was there. I said a bad word out loud, a woman looked at me in a non-friendly manor. I said, "I just got stung by a wasp." She didn't care. What a sure way to kill a grocery store romance.

Speaking of wasps, a year and a half ago I got stung on the arm. It seemed puffed up more than it should be and I went to a walk in clinic. The doctor gave me some antibiotics and said if the swelling does not go down in a couple of days go to the hospital. Ended up puffing up half my arm, They gave me some other ones and if they do not work they were going to put me on an IV as it was approaching my shoulder. I asked the doctor (OMG, make all my doctors look like her) what is going on, I have never been allergic to insect stings before, she said it was not the sting but the fact that wasps eat rotting garbage and carry what ever bacteria they pick up and inject it in you. Not on purpose mind you. So while I am usually respectful of the little buggers bite their not washing up after they eat has me giving them a wider berth now days.

sequoia said:

And what exactly is CA accelerator? Well it's pretty simple, it's is sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) , water and acetone or other water soluble volatile solvent. The baking soda is alkeline which neutralizes the acid CA and allows the polymers to quickly bond. Pretty simple. It is probably the acetone that is killing the weeds. And the wasps.

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That would probably work but the stuff I use definitely isn't that. It doesn't smell like acetone or any other common solvent and it doesn't leave a residue when it dries as NaHCo3 would. It's kind of oily so I guess there's some petroleum fraction in there and kind of sweet smelling so maybe there's some ester or something as well.

edit: I was half right. It's heptane plus some sort of aromatic amine.