SHOO! FAQ: Scare Tactics

Q: Is SHOO! a general repellent? What about bees? Will SHOO! scare away the hummingbirds?

A: SHOO! is not a general repellent--I often hear people refer to any yellow stripey,
sting-ey flying insect as 'bees'. Ground-nesting wasps, like Yellow Jackets, will not be affected. Carpenter Bees bore holes right next to my SHOO! Bumble bees will continue to visit & carry on their pollination. Be sure to positively identify your insects because you won't want to inadvertently destroy the nests of beneficial bees.

If you have a large/medium sized garden you may still get wasps carrying on their job as natural pest controllers in the periphery of your garden. Beekeepers can use SHOO! to help protect their hives from wasp attack.

SHOO! will not disturb the hummingbirds. Try hanging the SHOO! in a suitable location nearby and take the feeder down for a couple days. Wasps imprint food sources, returning to the source even after you remove it, and food source is a key motivator for nest location, so you may want to consider relocating nectar and bird food further away from your outdoor activities if your priority is keeping wasps away.

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https://kottke.org/18/08/a-comprehensive-guide-to-yellow-stripey-things

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SHOO! FAQ: Faking It?

Q: Why don’t wasps realize SHOO! is a fake wasp nest? A: They don’t get close enough to it to realize it's a fake wasp nest. SHOO! utilizes wasps’ territorial nature to discourage & redirect - t hey see a SHOO! from 20 feet away: the shape of a wasp’s nest, the horizontal pattern which makes it look fibrous and layered, and they keep away. Wasps can see for long distances, they cannot see red--good color to reduce your visibility outside & in the garden--and even recognize each other's faces! SHOO! does have to resemble a real wasp nest otherwise it wouldn’t work. A nest can be any color from brown through to silver, depending on what they use to build their nests. SHOO! is best left in one location each season- wasps will remember it's there & may not come back to the area at all. Polistes dominulus. (Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Tibbetts) Wasps Don't Forget A Face www.ikanartware.etsy.com ikanartware on Ebay

SHOO!: Faux Sure!

The queen wasp wakes from hibernation in the spring. She begins to build a nest in warm, dry place like your attics, roofs, eaves, walls, BBQ lids or under decks and she can fly up to 50 miles searching for the perfect nest site. This is a great time to fake it- hang your SHOO!s early in the spring & let those queens know they need to move on! She builds a honeycomb-like cell structure out of wood fiber, chewed & glued together with wasp saliva to form a sort of paper mâché material. In each cell of the new nest, the queen lays a single egg, which takes approximately 28-48 days to become an adult worker wasp force. Sometimes (when the queen is still working alone) another queen tries to steal a nest instead of working to make her own. This is one of the reasons why you may find a few starter nests that were never established. Once the queen has five to seven worker wasps to help her, she stays in the nest and lays eggs...

SHOO! FAQ: You Can Never Have Too Many SHOO!s

Q: How many SHOO!s do I need for my property? A: While there are no calculations or scientific data to figure out how many SHOO! wasp nest decoys you'll need, there are some wasp facts and evidence by experience. Wasps have low-resolution, wide-field vision, can see 20 feet away & they rely on visual cues and a photographic memory for navigation. First, place your SHOO! where you have seen nest building in the past. If it can be seen from different directions, that's even better. I placed my first SHOO! on a SW corner of my house and wasps stopped building their nests in my shed located 50ft away. Yet, they couldn't resist the spider web food source & quieter location (I hardly use the 2nd entrance) on the NE side of the house, so they built a nest. Next season, I hung a SHOO! from the soffit on that side of my house & no more wasp nests! If you leave your SHOO! up in the same location, wasps have a 3D photographic memory that they use to navigate...

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