Wasps the size of your thumb patrolling the yard, hovering at knee height, and charging straight at you when you walk past. Meanwhile there are little holes appearing all over the lawn. It looks like something out of a nature documentary, and the first thing most people ask is whether these are the "murder hornets" from the news.
They're not. These are cicada killers, and here's the part that's hard to believe while one is buzzing your head: the ones dive-bombing you are males, and males have no stinger at all. They cannot sting you. They're bluffing.
Free Photo ID — Text 717-379-3248Male cicada killers are territorial and theatrical — they hover, dart at faces, and chase each other and you around the yard. They also physically cannot sting. No stinger. It's entirely a bluff, and it's the reason these wasps have a far worse reputation than they deserve.
Females do have a stinger — they use it to paralyze cicadas. But they're solitary, they have no colony to defend, and they're famously reluctant to sting people. Realistically it takes grabbing one barehanded or stepping on one barefoot. Most Central PA homeowners live through an entire cicada killer season without a single sting.
This is the big difference from yellow jackets. Every hole is one female doing her own thing. Twenty holes means twenty independent wasps, not a nest of thousands with a shared alarm signal. Nothing pours out of the ground and comes after you.
Adults show up when annual cicadas do — roughly July into August here — and they're gone by early fall on their own. If you're reading this in late August, the problem is largely solving itself.
Both dig in the ground. One is harmless and one puts people in the emergency room, so getting this right is worth thirty seconds. It's easier than it sounds — look at the holes, not the wasp.
Lots of separate burrows scattered across an area, each about the width of a finger, each with a small horseshoe-shaped fan of loose soil beside it. One big wasp per hole, coming and going calmly. Often you'll see one dragging a paralyzed cicada — that's conclusive.
A single entrance with a steady stream of smaller wasps going in and out like an airport. No excavated soil fan. Get within a few feet with a mower and they come out in numbers. That's a real problem — see ground nests and yellow jacket removal.
Cicada killers are enormous — an inch and a half to two inches, with rusty-red legs and a black abdomen marked with pale yellow. Yellow jackets are about half an inch and brightly banded. If your reaction was "I've never seen a wasp that big," it's almost certainly a cicada killer.
Worth saying plainly: the northern giant hornet ("murder hornet") is not established in Pennsylvania. Every giant-wasp panic call we get here turns out to be a cicada killer or a European hornet. Send a photo and we'll settle it in a minute.
Cicada killers are picky about real estate, and what they want tells you how to get rid of them long-term. They dig in soil that is bare or thinly covered, well-drained, and in full sun. Thick, healthy turf is close to useless to them.
Thin or bare patches in the lawn, sandy or sandy-loam soil, the strip along a south-facing sidewalk or driveway, bare ground under a swing set, sparse areas beneath big shade trees, slopes and berms, and the edges of ball fields and sand traps.
A cicada killer problem is usually a turf problem wearing a costume. They found the one part of your yard where grass isn't thriving. Kill this year's wasps and next July they'll be back, because the bare spot is still there advertising.
Thicken the turf in the areas they're using — overseeding, correcting the soil, and consistent watering through their nesting window all make that ground far less attractive. It's slower than a spray and it's the only thing that actually ends the cycle. See lawn care.
Each female hunts cicadas, paralyzes them, and hauls them underground to feed one larva. They're also decent pollinators. As a beekeeping family we're not in a hurry to kill a native solitary wasp that isn't hurting anybody — and we'll say so.
Honest answer: often, no. We'd rather tell you that than sell you a service you don't need — you'll call us for something real later. Here's how we think about it.
A handful of burrows out in the open lawn, in a corner of the yard, along a fence line, or anywhere people aren't walking barefoot. They'll be gone by September. Fill the holes after they finish and get grass growing there.
Heavy activity in genuinely high-traffic areas — around a pool, a play set, a front walk, a mailbox, a business entrance. Also when someone in the household has a sting allergy, or when the sheer number of burrows is causing real turf and soil erosion.
Two parts, both done during the day. The burrows get a dust applied directly into each hole — females carry it down as they come and go. Then the flying adults get sprayed, which handles the ones patrolling the area that a burrow treatment alone would miss.
Because they're solitary, this is targeted work at individual burrows rather than a broadcast spray of your lawn. That's more precise, uses far less product, and leaves the rest of your yard and its pollinators alone.
Whether or not we treat, you'll get the turf recommendation for that spot — because that's what decides whether they come back next July. Free estimate, and we'll tell you plainly if the honest answer is to do nothing.
We serve Dauphin, Cumberland, Lebanon, Perry, and York Counties — including:
Harrisburg, Paxtang, Penbrook, Steelton, Highspire, Middletown, Hummelstown, Hershey, Palmyra, Annville, Cleona, Lebanon, Grantville, Linglestown, Colonial Park, Susquehanna Township, Lower Paxton, Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg, Lemoyne, New Cumberland, Wormleysburg, Enola, Marysville, Halifax, Millersburg, Elizabethtown, Mount Joy, Mount Wolf, Manchester, Dillsburg, Carlisle, Boiling Springs, and surrounding Central PA communities.
Free identification, and an honest answer about whether it needs treating at all. Serving Harrisburg and Central PA.
Call or Text 717-379-3248