Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Paper wasps are a plague to southerners with porches and old-fashioned trim wooden trim work, especially which needs painting, on their houses. These social insects (ie defenders of their colonies) build relatively small nests that look like a suspended, open, upside down umbrella and usually contain from 50 to 75 individual cells in which the young develop. The adults, which mostly dine on nectar, collect and digest insects, especially caterpillars, to feed to the developing larvae. So the do perform the beneficial function of doing some pollination as they visit flowers to feed and also insect control. They have a queen and are social insects and will viciously defend their nests. If you have a nuisance nest, control it at dusk with a special pesticide designed to spray twenty feet so you can stand near a house or car door and get away quickly.
Paper Wasps
