Yellow-Jacket? What is this? They are everywhere and are increasing in number and attitude!

Another picture.

Here is a better view of the white egg sacks...

another picture

if we can ID the plant.. that really narrows down the bug ... and i cant with these pix ....

the bug looks like scale ....

if so.. you either..

get rid of the plants ...

or go systemic.. IMHO ...

bayer tree and shrub is labeled for scale ...

there are other.. less effective ... timing specific remedies.. which i never perfected .... such as hort oil ... for scale.. if that is what it is ...

and if it euonomys... well.. that says it all ...

ken

Here is the whole plant. We are in Central Texas if that helps too. This plant is sold along side the red leaf trees and other shrubs.

Just took this picture. I Googled scale and it does look like that. If it is scale then are the wasps and yellow-jackets feeding on them? If they are then I want to keep them around until I get rid of the scale. I just don't want the family to get stung.

Hort oil is not dependent on timing, like chemical sprays since it kills in all stages of infestation. With traditional pesticides one has to catch the scale in a certain stage. Not so with oil and it is every bit as effective and perhaps more so than a systemic and insects cannot and have not developed resistance to it, as it's merely a suffocant. The yellow jackets are seeking the honeydew the scale secretes. You can see the black sooty mold on the leaves from the sugars in the honey dew. You had a heck of an infestation before you noticed it.

OK they are cottony cushion scales and the plant is a pittosporum. How do I get rid of them and what role are the flies, wasps and yellow-jackets playing?

I don't typically pay these bushes much attention and my normal monthly trimming was put on hold because my trimmer wasn't working. So yeah, I didn't notice anything until they really got in there good. The yellow-jackets are what got me even looking into the bush. I thought maybe they were making a nest. That's when I saw the scale and all the black mold. Of course, it took me several weeks to get on here and post something to figure out what is going on! :o) Honestly, if the yellow-jackets and wasps weren't increasing I probably wouldn't care. They are just getting pretty thick and my kids are constantly walking past that bush. It is literally just outside my front door.

Are the wasps and yellow-jackets doing anything to control the scale or are they just feeding on the honeydew? I'd like to get rid of the stinging critters so I can trim the bushes back. That may help reduce the scale too!

The wasps and yellow jackets are feeding on the honeydew - get rid of the scale, you get rid of the honeydew and the wasps will follow. Hosing down the plants well will get rid of a lot of that sweet stickiness of the honeydew and reduce the sooty mold but may also aggravate the wasps. But so will spraying with hort oil :-) Neem oil works really well also.

That's one of the worst infestations of cottony cushion scale I've ever seen....takes a long time for them to build up to that level.

Pittosporum are very susceptible to these particular pests, so management will be ongoing.

Perhaps the link below from the University of California might be of some help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Control of scale

I cannot give you suggestions since I live in a temperate zone where the deed could be done when the wasps are not present when it's cold. I also cannot comment on cutting back your pittosporum, because that's also a shrub we do not have in our zone, so I don't know how severely it can be pruned. If it were something like euonymus or privet, I certainly know it would be cut off near ground level immediately and treated and left to regrow (if I wanted that particular type of vegetation). You're going to be challenged to do much of anything with the danger involved messing with the wasps.