Bill Wrote:
  Why are wasps a problem? 
I never had a problem with wasps that the bees couldn't take care of until 2004. In one apairy they were so bad that 4 to 5 inches around some hive entrances were covered with what seemed like thousands of wasps. I closed all the hives down a 2-3 bee entrance. I still lost 4 or 5 hives. The ones that did survive were so stressed that they all died over winter. In another apairy were they were not quite as bad I lost about 25% of my hives. In the apairy with normal wasp activity I only lost one hive, probably starvation.

This year when the wasps were building up equally quickly I put out regular traps but they filled within a few hours. It was then that I put out the open bait trays (as described in my initial post) and initially trapped about one gallon of wasps per day. When the trapped volume dropped to about a cup a day I quit trapping and the bees looked after themselves OK -I think. They seemed to go into the winter their usual strong clusters. Now I have to wait till spring and see.

Thanks everyone for your valuable insights, 

Cheers  ..bob

PS: I do a lot of different gardening and value what the wasps do for me in the garden.

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