For those of you living down south, seeing your hives waking up and becoming active for the upcoming season should serve as a reminder:
Spring time is the season when mated, female wasps that have overwintered, are coming out, searching for sites to set up their nests for their new year of pestiferous (for beekeepers) activities. Every fundatrix wasp caught now means that you have "destroyed" a hive of wasps that could reach damaging sizes toward the end of the coming summer.
These females are not only looking for hive sites but are also interested in feeding themselves so they can build the starting nest stages and lay the eggs that will become workers and take over the of the maintenance activities of their hives. Now they are most exposed. Later on, as their hive populations grow, they will stay at home laying eggs while their offspring will do the searching for sustenance.
Putting out traps now can catch the wasps at their most vulnerable stage and be most effective in keeping down their populations.
For those further north, still relegated to inactivity by the lingering cold of winter, if you see a wasp flying around at the time of year when your hives are really starting to build up, don't ignore it. Wasp control is important for you too, it just starts later.
The trouble is that we usually don't think of wasp control till they are already causing damage---and then it is too late.
