A Detailed Guide to Wasp Farming Techniques and Management Methods

1. Collecting Wasps

In late September and early October each year, wasps begin to leave their old nests and migrate to suitable places to gather for overwintering. This is the most suitable time to collect the swarm. At night, use an insect net to collect the swarm at their overwintering site, and keep them in bee cages. Put 300-500 wasps in each cage, cover it with black cloth to block light, and place it in a dry, ventilated, undisturbed empty room to reduce their activity and prompt them to enter hibernation early. To avoid difficulty in finding the swarm after it leaves the nest, you can also harvest them from the original nest in mid-September, put them in a cage or box, and take advantage of the swarm's upward habit by placing ripe apples, peaches and leafy green vegetables with high water content at the bottom of the cage. Pest and disease control,

2. Rearing and Management

In early March of the second year, when the temperature rises above 10 degrees C, the overwintering wasps begin to disperse from the cluster and move about on the cage walls. At this point, feed them artificially with apples, molasses, steamed buns mixed with sugar and other feed. Continue feeding until mid-April, and only after the wasps in the cage have flapped their wings and been active for a period of time can they be released from the cage. Artificial assisted nest building means building a wasp shed under natural conditions. When the spring temperature is constant at 13 degrees C, the overwintering wasps begin to disperse and become active. You can move them into the shed at night, gently open the cage door or box lid, and the next day the wasps will fly around inside the shed. When the temperature is constant above 17 degrees C, the wasps begin to enter the stage of building nests and laying eggs. Observe at all times. If you see wasps flying and stopping on the shed roof and the surrounding gauze net, hang the wasp cages at various places inside the shed in time, open each cage halfway and tie it firmly.

In the rearing shed, the only suitable nest-building sites that are shaded from light, sheltered from rain and protected from wind are the artificially placed wasp cages, and the wasps will naturally fly into the cages. After only a brief period of adaptation, they use their legs and mouthparts to clear the nest base on the cage top. At this time, molasses should be added to the feed tray to help the wasps build a firm nest stalk. Then they build the first nest cell. The nest cell is made by the wasps carrying chewed rotten wood, paper and other paste-like fibrous material into the cage, sticking it to the nest stalk, and then slightly shaping it, so put rotten wood in the wasp shed and hang some waste paper strips on the gauze net of the shed walls for the wasps to use.

3. Pest and Disease Control

There are many kinds of natural enemies that harm wasps, including insects, spiders, birds and mice, as well as diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms. The most serious pest harming wasp nests is the yellow-tailed nest moth of the family Pyralidae in the order Lepidoptera. To prevent nest moths, the wasp nests should be built far from the ground, because in nature, wasp nests close to the ground generally suffer severe damage from nest moths, while those far from the ground suffer less; for wasps in artificial rearing boxes, during the 2-3 days when nest moths lay eggs, close the box door every night to prevent nest moths from laying eggs inside the box. Larvae are prone to putrefactive disease in hot and rainy seasons, and after infection they quickly become diseased and die. You can spread out the boxes and spray antibiotics on the nests with a sprayer for prevention.