Plants & Bulbs

» Robert Dailey - Are yellow jackets attracted to pachysandra (Jap. Spurge variety

No. Not to my knowledge.

However, pachysandra (japanese spurge) is known to harbor scale insects, which produce honeydew. The yellow jackets could be after that honeydew, which they love.

Scales are insects which spend the winter on trunks and stems of the plant. They lay eggs that hatch into immature insects called crawlers.

These are very small (about one-tenth of an inch) and soft bodied. They survive by sucking the juices from pachysandra (and other plants). Their legs eventually atropohy, and a waxy substance covers them. Some species of scale that infect pachysandra are unable to digest all the sugar in the plant sap, and they excrete as a substance called honeydew.

If the yellow jackets are in your pachysandra, I suspect that they may seeking the honeydew produced by the scale insects.

Carefully examine your plants. Uncontrolled infestation of scale can kill pachysandra in two to three years.

There are several ways to control and get rid of scale insects.
Organic methods include spraying with a mixture of insecticidal soap and horticultural oil (also called dormant oil. Late fall/winter is a good time to do this, after the plant goes into dormancy.

As a last resort, you can use pyrethrin, which is an organic pesticide made from the chrysanthemum plant.

You can also employ the use of predatory beetles like soldier bettles and ladybugs, although it it too late in the season to use them now, unless you live in the tropics.

There are also chemical pesticides available.

If you do not detect any scale insects, you might check to see if something else is attracting the yellow jackets(a piece of candy carelessly thrown in there, some spilled sugared drink, something dead, any other food that may have somehow found its way into your pachysandra.)

I hope this helps. The yellow jackets should die off in winter, but, if you have scale insects on your pachysandra, the next generation will be back in the early summer.