Last Monday I tried to cook on my long ignored Woodmaster Mini Hog cooker. Lighting the fire pot stirred up a wasp swarm.
I did push the burning tray back into the cooker, but I have been nervous about wasps. I’m allergic!
Any ideas on ridding the cooker of wasps? Don’t want to spray. Maybe the cooker could be tipped to get to the underside, but I’m no certain I can do that alone. I’d really like to use it for a rib cook off weekend after next…
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I would just fire up the pit and let it take its course. The smoke will make the drowsy anyway. Any that don't get out, will burn up. Start the fire some where else, and throw some of the burning logs into the fire box.
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I opened up a folding banquet table and there were three huge nests in there. I got a swarm of angry wasps, but no attacks. I soaked the nests down with the hose and covered them with a towel, and stomped them out. The wasps circled for a few hours, and were gone.
In NEPA, those are mud dauber wasps, and not very aggressive. Still, if you’re allergic, it’s not worth risking. Call an exterminator.
edit: I remember that a friend of mine used to to wasp and bee removal. He used a freeze spray. You might look for it in the hardware store.
edit edit: looked it up, they have insecticides in them. Never mind.
Last edited by Mosca; September 8, 2022, 09:29 AM.
I understand not wanting to spray insecticides around your smokers. However a soapy spray in a garden sprayer will kill then almost instantly.
Take a garden sprayer, fill with a gallon or so of water, add about a 1/4 cup of soap, some use dish soap but I use car wash soap, pump it up, stand back from the nest, and spray away. The soap will coat their wings so they immediately drop and the mixture will kill them very soon after.
Best time is near dusk when most have returned to nest. No poison or insecticides to clean up. This has been reliable for me for decades and works.
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just a garden hose, wash them out.....I'm going to assume they are red wasp....we deal with these by the 100's it seems. I use a garden hose and just spray them down and smash.
Inside of the cooker....just start a fire and make sure it's really smokey.....it will drive them out fast. Just use a chimney with some KBB.
Depending on where you are, this would be the end of the season for them. Once the queen is gone they will all go. So, if you are in a colder climate you could just wait them out.
This has nothing to do with how to solve your dilemma but - I have never been stung by a wasp in a nest that hung in my rafters. I have hosed them (full nests) away, sprayed them away and even broomed them away. However, ground wasps have swarmed and attacked me and my wife.
I must be nutz but I go toe to toe with the lil jerks, a blow torch on the nest throws a fairly severe wrinkle into they're day.
One stung my grand daughter and it was on, I've got two stings on my hand from combat last weekend.
Building a fire in it is likely the best thing. If I'm lucky, the fire in the photo above burned the nest when I pushed it back into place in the cooker. Y'all this is a pellet cooker so flame throwers etc. could cause problems with electronics. This is a very basic model (no igniter), but I've already melted wiring on one side. Do need to protect the working side because it cooks great BBQ on just one burner (which is why the other side is still down). I burnt the wires cooking steaks at Magnolia, AR steak cookoff years ago. Money record with this cooker is 5:1 out of 6 cookoffs where it was used. But it's not a sturdy-built cooker, it only weighs about 500 lb.
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