So far we are still haveing a nice harvest from our remaining autumn bliss
raspberries plants, but this year the yellowjackets were especially hungry.
The first week of picking I had to pick berries a day early (not fully ripe)
- or 90 percent would be eaten on. I was just getting around to making up
some sort of mix of corn syrup and honey in a bowl - to put as a diversion
near the berries - when I noticed our compost pile. We had just thrown out a
pile of watermelon rind and it was covered with the little raskels. In a day
the raspberries were virtually left alone. Sweet corn cobs and cantelope
rind worked also but nothing as well as watermelon. Has anyone tried a bowl
of something sweet to distract them? Our dry winter seems to have been quite
hard on the bald faced hornets, have only seen a few on the berries, and I
understand they are an important predator. My wife , a lifetime Minnesotan
says this is the first summer ever where one could sit out of an evening and
not be eaten by mosquitos. Dry winters do have their plus side. Del
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[NAFEX] raspberries /yellowjackets,
del stubbs, 09/09/2003