Yellow jackets.

They are a part of summer, but we don’t have to like it. As much as we don’t want to admit it, yellow jackets do serve a purpose. They are beneficial around gardens because they feed on caterpillars and other insects. With all of that said, a yellow jacket sting can turn into a life threatening situation if you are allergic to the venom.

Being able identify yellow jackets is important because many times they can be mistaken as honey bees. The yellow jacket is about a half inch long with alternating yellow and black bands going down their hairless body.

Honey bees are a bit larger in size and have hair on their bodies. Bees will also usually have pollen sacks on their rear legs that will be filled with yellow pollen accumulated as they forage.

The yellow jacket queen is the only member of the colony to overwinter. In April or May, the queen emerges from where she spent the winter to find a nesting site. Typically, this is in the soil.

She then builds a small paper nest and lays many eggs that hatch and mature to adult workers. From there the workers take over the nest-building task from the queen. They also begin foraging for food, protect the nest and feed the queen and larvae.

The colony keeps building and by August, it can reach to the size of several hundred workers. At this peak, the colony produces several queens and males. These will leave the colony to reproduce.

Once everything is done, the males die and the queen falls to the ground and finds a suitable place to spend the winter.

Controlling yellow jackets needs to be done with an insecticide labeled for their control. Usually it will have a chemical in it to give a quick knockdown.

Spraying the nest should be done at night when the workers are inside the colony and less active. Yellow jackets are attracted to light so do not use a flashlight and limit the number of other lights you have on around your house.

If you are having a hard time locating the nest, hang a small piece of fish in a tree about head high and watch the workers. Once they get a piece of food, they usually go straight back to the nest, which can be up to 1,000 yards away.

Another way to control them is to use traps around the perimeter of your yard. There are many commercially available traps out there and most contain a reservoir that can be filled with sugar water or another attractant like bologna.

Check the traps daily and keep them clean to keep them from stinking. If you use a sugar-based bait, check to make sure you are not attracting bees. If this happens, change the bait to something different.

A homemade trap can be made by hanging a piece of meat over a bucket that is filled with soapy water. The soapy water reduces water tension and when the food-stuffed yellow jackets become too heavy and fall into the bucket, they sink and drown.

These two trapping methods will only keep the population of the colony down to reasonable levels, but that might be enough to keep your backyard from being taken over by the foraging colony.

If you have any questions about yellow jackets this summer, call our office for help.

Michael Wheeler is county extension coordinator for the UGA Cooperative Extension in Hall County. Contact him at 770-535-8293, www.hallcounty.org/extension. His column appears weekly and on gainesvilletimes.com/life.