Wasps: the trick of coffee grounds to keep them away

It is an unusual but effective technique against wasps. On the terrace, by the pool or during a barbecue, as soon as the fine weather returns, wasps can invade us and become a real ordeal. In the past two years, due to very mild summers, these insects had swarmed exponentially. Indeed, if summer is generally the season when wasp colonies are most active, the mild winters and warm springs allow the queens to survive and develop their nest as well as possible.

You should know that among these hymenoptera, which also include bees and ants, there are “4000 to 5000 species of wasps”, according to the details given to BFMTV by Sébastien Legrand, entomology facilitator at the Office for Insects and their environment and at the Insect House. He assures us that there are “only about twenty species of social wasps and that among these, only two are able to annoy us: the common wasp and the Germanic wasp”.

However, there is an infallible natural trick that can allow you to escape the onslaught of wasps. All you have to do is place coffee grounds or fresh ground coffee in a small cup to keep them away. If mosquitoes have their fault with lemongrass, coffee grounds are a real repellent for wasps. “I did not use it myself but burning coffee grounds would have a repulsive effect”, confirms with BFMTV Sébastien Legrand.

Samuel Jolivet, director of the Office for insects and their environment, also validated with BFMTV the effectiveness of this practical trick that is easy to do at home. “There is something that is turning a lot this year, it is to put coffee grounds in a small cup, to light it like incense, it gives off smoke and obviously it scares away the wasps.” In practice, all you have to do is pour coffee grounds into a small cup or cup and light a small part of the coffee using a lighter or a match. The little smoke that will be released will scare away the wasps.

During the summer period, it is very likely that a wasp will come flying around you. The best thing to do is to stay calm and keep food away from you because the sweet smells attract them. “It’s a bit like humans, if we don’t attack them, they won’t attack us”, summarizes Jérémy Toussaint, head of the Guêpes-Apens Network. The risk of stinging arises when one commits an action which “has annoyed the insect”. Avoid abrupt gestures as much as possible.

If you ever get bitten, if you are not allergic, just apply an alcohol compress to the bite and get an antihistamine from the pharmacy to prevent the bite from swelling. In order to relieve the pain, there are also home remedies with ingredients that you can find in your kitchen. Among them, there is vinegar that you just have to soak on a compress of vinegar and apply to the bite to stop the pain. Onion, like garlic, also contains enzymes that can act on wasp venom and neutralize it. All you need to do is cut an onion into slices or crush a clove of garlic. You then rub the sting with the remedy. Used as a poultice, baking soda also helps relieve wasp stings.