ROLEYSTONE, Canning Vale and Maddington are some of the areas that will particularly be looked at for european wasp surveillance.
The Department of Agriculture and Food has deployed more than 1000 traps for european wasps in the metropolitan area this season.
Department senior technical officer Marc Widmer said Roleystone was a particularly bad area, along with industrial areas such as Maddington and Kelmscott.
Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
READ NOW“Roleystone has been particularly bad as there is a lot of space between people and the nest can survive without anyone seeing it,” he said.
“The european wasp is considered the world’s worst social wasp and since 1977 we have successfully eradicated incursions and prevented the wasp from establishing in WA.”
Mr Widmer said it was easier to pick up nests in industrial areas such as Maddington and Kelmscott because there were more people to find and report them.
The department destroyed 84 nests in 2015-16; 81 were destroyed the previous year.
The average over previous decades was 20-40 nests per year.
The department has invited people to adopt a trap from the department and regularly set it with a non-toxic protein lure and check it for european wasps.
For details, visit agric.wa.gov.au or call the department’s Pest and Disease Information Service on 1800 084 881.