M Q wrote:

I have a bit of a yellow jacket problem.
Through luck, I managed to find 3 yellow jacket nests
near the back of my house, which I have eliminated (the nests,
not the house!), yet the yellow jacket traps that I have
still keep filling up. And there still seems to be plenty of
yellow jackets buzzing around whenever we try to have a meal outside.

1) Do the yellow jacket traps actually trap a significant portion
of yellow jackets, or are they just to keep homeowners busy and
lighten their wallets?

2) Is there a better way? Either some way to find the nests, or
else some poisoned bait that they take back to their nests?
(I know there is slow poison bait for ants that they supposedly
take back to their nets.)

Wondering if you had three paper wasp nests and not yellow jackets...but
with the yellow jacket traps you will only trap a small percentage of a
wasps from a nest. The traps are basically aids to attract the foraging
wasps away from areas of your yard. Yellow jackets will nest in voids,
and usually aren't found until the numbers are so great their activity
is easily seen or the vegetation hiding their activity dies back in the
Fall. just guessing there is not a "bait" due to you would be blindly
killing out beneficial insects, rather than just the occasional problem
nest.

Lar