July brings the midsummer pests which are some of the most dangerous and annoying. In addition to those summer mosquitoes that ruin your nights on your patio, the stinging insects are at an all time high. Yellow jackets are probably visiting your outdoor dinners and the wasps are hovering all around the roof lines. If this isn’t cause enough to get your house under some sort of service prevention, this next pest is.

A new arrival to this region is the European Cicada Killer Wasp. If you are unfamiliar with this creature check them out in our Pest Library under our resources tab.  These wasps can be 2” – 3” in size with an equal wing span. They fly erratically very close to the ground in areas of nesting sites. Although armed with a very large stinger they are not known to be an aggressive species but will easily take over a front walk or area of your lawn making it inhabitable.

These large wasps look for nesting sites in sunny areas with sandy type soil conditions.  In the late summer when the cicada are abundant in the trees (that clicking noise you here) these wasps fly up to the trees and paralyze the cicada with their stingers and drag them back to their large nesting holes in the ground. Once in the nest they impregnate them with an egg, the egg hatches and feed on the cicada and then develop into an adult wasp for next season.

These nesting areas seem to appear over night. What starts as a handful of bees can turn into several dozen. Young children are at risk and you will lose the use of your outdoors.  All County Pest Control has the equipment and expertise to effectively deal with this rare pest. Call our office immediately upon discovery of this pest.