"raden" wrote in message
...
In message , RichardS
writes
wrote in message ...
Set Square wrote:
In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Martin Crook wrote:

Wasps are turning the garden furniture into their nests! The
problem
is that there are enough of them to make sitting/eating on the
furniture rather an unpleasant experience of late - does anyone
have
any ideas, we've tried sprigs of herbs etc but to no effect, we
would
rather not use teak oil on the furniture (prefer silvered look),
I'm
not sure if it would help in any case.

Martin

Find the nest and *EXTERMINATE* it. Sorry Mary!

Is the OP sure that it's wasps? Anyway if they're drilling holes in
the furniture they aren't ordinary wasps and I suspect they're
solitary ones so finding a 'nest' will be a little difficult.



yeah, it's wasp-like behaviour, IMO(bserved)E...

They can often be seen scratching away at fence panels, and the likes.
I
think that if they're not attracted to the resin (and I don't think that
this is the attraction) then they're gathering the raw building material
for
their papery nests.

Not sure what the OP could do. I'd wonder about experimenting and
finely
spraying the chairs with an aromatic compound that might put the wasps
off
and not affect the furniture. One of the Tea Tree products would be my
starter for 10, it might not take very much of it to put them off. On
the
other hand they may not take any notice of it at all.

Using a bit of lateral thinking....

if The OP was to put some softer "sacrificial" wood out for them to
munch, maybe they'll change their eating habits

just a thought




Whatever the OP does, I'd try it out on only one bit of furniture first,
probably the cheapest part of the set, and then observe to see if it does
deter them.


--
geoff

In response to all , they are definately wasps and wev'e killed about three
nests in the near area. The council will be dealing with the german wasps
in the little shed - 30mm long and very mean looking. They don't really
drill holes, just scratch a track along the surface - it shows up well on
weathered teak because they remove the top silver layer - Iv'e seen this
behaviour many times and they do seem to like teak, or mabe they
particularly like the top oxidised surface because it's easier for them to
fashion into nests. There is lots of other wood around in the garden, I may
try some Tea Tree type spray, but hopefuly this won't have to be repeated
every time it rains!

Martin