Two rows of 1/4" hardware cloth, one small zip tie plus a handful of dabs of hot glue. After I had already done half a dozen I decided to time myself with a stopwatch. To accomplish this on one feeder it took me just over five minutes to cut all four sides of the hardware cloth, shape it into a rough circle, tie the ends together and apply the glue in the locations I felt it was necessary. I highly recommend this quick method to anyone having problems.
Saw this wasp thing voraciously eating a leafhopper tonight. It was really cool to see, and I was thinking, “it’s working! It’s working!” In regards to planting all the things to bring in the beneficials…
I think they are beneficial but many will argue that.
The things you planted to bring them in was fruit and insect friendly things…
Insect prey is their diet… so those that remove insects via spraying take on the job of the Yellow Jacket.
Once the insects are gone they then turn to sugars/fruits… so folks that remove insects should have them eating fruit earlier than folks that dont remove insects. After all insects have been removed they then turn to fruit usually.
Yellow jackets aren’t my preferred wasps–I’d much rather see mud dabbers, cuckoo wasps, or solitary wasps–but I’ll take them over paper wasps or for sure hornets!
Yeah, it’s a YMMV. My parents have 20+ acres that’s been a completely organic farm now for almost a half century, and before that it was not sprayed much either. Insecticides haven’t been sprayed on that land since around the late 70s. Livestock host or support huge numbers of gnats, biting flies, dung-eating flies, soldier bugs, you name it. There are wetlands in and around the property as well, including a creek a few hundred yards from the garden, so plenty of mosquitoes. There’s no shortage of bugs there. Every year the yellowjackets obliterate the figs the moment they start ripening. Any melon that cracks will have yellowjackets feasting on it within hours. Even tomatoes, which aren’t that sweet, will get yellowjackets chewing on them if they crack as they’re ripening. And of course I remember being a kid and having to shoo them away from the bowl of watermelon slices we were trying to enjoy on hot summer days.
I’ve noticed they are also fond of scavenging carcasses. Anything not cleaned up after the pigs got slaughtered or a deer got gutted early season before the cold really set it would have yellowjackets on it before long.
To my mind, yellowjackets are omnivores–they’ll eat bugs, sure, but they’ll also eat fruits, meat, candy, blood and guts, berries, just about anything really. Their preference is mostly whichever one they find first.
Still, better yellowjackets than hornets. It’s like black snakes and copperheads–the former are certainly a mix of good (eating rodents) and bad (eating eggs, chicks), but man are they preferable over copperheads.
I may have been wrong on that identification of a yellow jacket… it could be a European paper wasp? (hard to tell by the picture as the antennae arent that visible).
If so then… they should probably be removed instead of being ‘beneficial’…
Growing up i hated our ‘waspers’ which are Northern Paper wasps.
But i like them now… they pick off every aphid and caterpillar off of my fruit trees that i have seen.
I do not like them going forward as i have to pick my blackberries in the late evening or very early morning…which i shouldnt be growing late ripening ones… the wasps are drinking the nectar during the daytime now. and starting to go to my cracking peaches.
For me though, i prefer the wasps the bald face hornets are finally okay with me around here. I’ve been feeding and watering everyone of them all summer and its finally gotten to the point where I’m accepted by all wasps and hornets at home
I like all pollinators in general! And love to see them all in particular bees of all kind.
Happy to hear that the wasps, hornets and you are getting along
Here is an eye catching caterpillar.
My 6 year old granddaughter spotted it first.
It is sparkling and iridescent !
It may be making a cocoon ?
It was in the same place for two days, and may still be there.
the bald face hornets are finally okay with me around here. I’ve been feeding and watering everyone of them all summer and its finally gotten to the point where I’m accepted by all wasps and hornets at home 
