Looking for advice. I've got what I believe are paper wasps in my trailer tongue. Trailer has been sitting outside for a few months. Need to pull boat out for maintenance. Went to hook up trailer yesterday and found dozen or so wasps flying in and out of tongue; from underneath, behind the coupler. I sprayed wasp spray on and around tongue yesterday, but was difficult to spray up from ground. Went out today and saw zero activity and thought I was good. Started moving safety chains and found out otherwise. Got a couple stings through gloves. Could have been worse, except now I am less than eager to try again.

Any suggestions on how to clear them out...or kill them, from underneath? Pretty sure the nest is in the square metal tongue tube right behind coupler, though I haven't seen it yet.

I feel like @TnRiver46 is going to have a good answer.

Any pics of the trailer tongue? Can you tell where they come and go from? I’d control as much of that as you can with plastic wrap and tape and then spray through wherever else they’d come out. My alternate answer is a big trash bag and a fogger if you can do it.

Thanks, @VolFan . Agreed that fogger in garbage bag might be best option. Spraying up in there best I could seemed to have little effect. Apparently, the spray has to coat each wasp to be effective, and that isn't likely.

Fortunately, they aren't too aggressive, so I shouldn't have problem getting a bag taped around the whole front of the tongue. Not sure if tube(s) are open inside all the way back, though.

Water will do it. Once the nest gets wet, they leave.

I have wasps in my trailer tongue every summer haha. They make an expanding spray insecticide that should do it

Funny, we have this problem times 10,000 at work right now. Hollow poles metal scaffolding for fire training is absolutely loaded with wasps, we are paying an exterminator to work at it for 3 hours in the morning

That sounds like an absolute nightmare. If I let my boat sit for too long between May and the end of June I’ll find paper wasp queens trying to make nests in my boat. Knock on wood I’ve always been able to find the nests before It becomes a huge issue. Usually, I’ll see the big queen wasp coming and going building the nest. Most of the time it’s up underneath one of the gunnel’s or below my fishing platform.

My Biggest fear is not finding where the nest are until I’m 8 miles out on Saginaw bay and surprise!!!!

Wasps and other stinging/biting insects are my absolute most hated pest. Give me all the snakes, spiders, etc you want. But hornets and wasps are a hard no. They get zero quarter here. I have to deal with 1-3 nests of yellow jackets in the ground here every year, usually in the landscaping mulch. And we'll get various mud daubers, wasps, and others elsewhere around. The worst was yellow jackets last year. Our front door is inset about 2' from the main frontage of the house (all brick) but there is an 18" wooden header above it to fill the space. Yellow jackets got inside and built a big nest to the point that there would be dozens in the air at any point of the day. I didn't know about them until I went to get a package off the front stoop and got whacked on the crown of the head a couple times. That one required an exterminator in a suit to get them all and there were around 150 that fell out when they died (who knows how many more didn't fall out of the header).

Fortunately for you, it's a swing away tongue. So they can't go too far back in!

The expanding foam wasp spray is what I use for similar things. Also, do it at night. At night they will come back to the nest asleep and all be in there. For something like that, I'd empty a half a can up through the hole and leave it for the morning.

Went and sprayed up in there last night and at least a dozen came out and went straight to the ground. Will go again this evening and see what is left. Fortunately, no real urgency, but I would prefer to have the boat out over the weekend since weekdays are so much more pleasant on the water.

6 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

Fortunately for you, it's a swing away tongue. So they can't go too far back in!

Thank you! I hadn't even thought about the swing tongue. I may be able to get them from that end if they let me swing it.

The stings suck, but the next couple days of itching is what drives me insane.

I second the expanding foam killer. After dusk when they are all in for the evening.

I had 2 hives hangin on the house eves, blasted them with the water hose and destroyed the hive, fun times.

Beekeeper suit on Amazon is less than 50 bucks (or it was when I got mine) and a shop vac with soapy water inside should do the trick.