SHOO! FAQ: "What are those wasps doing in my pool?" Hint: it's not the backstroke!

Q: I have a wasp problem around my pool in the summer time. They use the pool as a water bowl. I have been stung a few times now. Will the SHOO! work to keep them out of the pool? Where would be the best place for me to hang them?

A: Wasps are naturally territorial insects so when one group of wasps sees signs of another group, they usually avoid them. Another nest is the most obvious sign of another group so use SHOO! & nature to your advantage!

How many SHOO!s depend on the size of your pool- hang a SHOO! (6'-8' high) to see how it works within a certain radius. If the wasps appear on the other side of the pool, you may end up needing 2 or even 3 SHOO!s to cover the entire pool area.

Though crucial components of the overall ecosystem, the best way to keep wasps away is to make your pool less attractive to them. They have a hyper-active sense of smell and are oddly attracted to strong odors like diesel, swamps & chlorine. To keep them from hanging around, try to keep your water as clean and odor-free as possible.

Mint is GREAT for keeping wasps (and flies) away. Basil, lavender, and lemongrass also work well. Plant by the pool or in a cute pot and stick it on a table.

Wasps are naturally drawn to big, open sources of water to drink from, particularly when they need to cool down their hives in the summer season. Adding an alternative water source - away from the pool - may get them used to another watering location. The best time to this is before you open your pool, using old pool water to attract them faster.

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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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