Yellow Jacket Nest

Those things make me hurt and itch just to look at them. I've never seen one not built in the ground either (except on North Avenue). Don't let anyone tell you that yellow jackets don't build in the flood plain either. I KNOW better.

Andy

I was mowing a few years ago and found those suckers coming out of a hole in the ground.

A little gas and a match took care of them.

I have a particular fear/hatred of yellow jackets. I never seem to spot them until after I've disturbed them. Gives me the heebie jeebies just looking at the pics.

Those are some Godless Sons-of-b!t¢hes and I can see no rational reason that genocide should not be used on them.

Honey bees are different. Bald Face Hornets are different. Red Wasps and yellow jackets provide no good use as far as I can see other than instilling hate and fear in those who must work around them.

Very common up here to have yellow jackets nest in walls, eaves, foundations, etc. In fact, nests in structures are more common than in the ground. We don't see them much till August, then their numbers explode exponentially prior to freezing.

They are very aggressive and the nests are difficult to get rid of once built inside a structure. The access hole might be 5 feet away from the actual nest.

It seems whenever I run across a nest in the woods, it is near a cedar tree.

I've unfortunately encountered those guys on occasion, but we have a smaller (But Potent) counterpart that the local surveyors refer to as "Ground Bees". They usually nest at the base of stumps and in the roots of shrubs and bushes.

I opened the door to the side shed about a year ago. Turns out this was found in the woods and looked interesting enough for someone to keep (as a keepsake I guess). It about gave me a heart attack!

Someone has surely determined some useful purpose served by pesky, stinging insects, but, if so, they forgot to tell the rest of us. Keep as many of those little s-o-b's as you can, 'cause we don't need any more of them.

SNOOP - Love your avatar picture

It's nice to finally put a face to your name.

I've heard it said..

That God made bees, but the devil surely made wasps.

A bee stings you and leaves it's stinger behind, can't sting you twice. Yellow Jackets keep their stinger and sting you 3 times per second as many times as they want. And a YJ sting is some 3 times as painfull as a bee. They are like bees in that if you leave them alone they won't bother you. But the YJ has a much shorter fuze, and they are much faster than bees. Thank Dog they don't have thousands per hive like bees.

I will never ever forget the site of the instrument man walking on air like a cartoon character when he put the tripod through a nest. I'm walking down line about 40 feet behind him when I hear him yelp then squeal then grow wings and come flying past me with a strange dark buzzing cloud about 10' behind him. He and the cloud kept going over the creek we'd just past. The party chief and I looked at each other and dropped in hysterical laughter. It was absolutely like something you would see Wiley Coyote mixed up in. He refused to go get the instrument and legs. I was low man so guess what... strange thing was they never even stirred when I removed said tripod from their nest. He was hoping I would join him in the misery of the red welps. ... We did show a note on the survey about the ground wasp nest there on line.

Those are the absolute meanest d*mn things on the planet.

Craig

I have 7 in my conference room we've gathered over the years. The bald face hornets nests are pretty easy to get if you follow a few simple rules.

1. Go when it's cold. Not 50°, but under 40° and early in the morning. Late at night does the same thing, but you can't see as well.

2. Have an escape route planned out (obvious reasons).

3. Have TWO big black trash bags (you'll see why in a minute).

4. As you approach the nest, have a can of foaming wasp spray. Only use a little shot of foaming wasp spray in the hole. It will plug the hole temporarily. It will also eat away at the nest, so don't use a lot.

5. Take your number one trash bag and put it around the nest and cut the limb it's on and tie the bag, not the tie strings. Just before you tie it, take a can of non-foaming wasp spray and empty it in the bag. It won't hurt the nest.

6. Take it back to the truck and use your second bag around the first in case there is a hole in the first one. Lay it in the sun.

7. As the greenhouse effect takes place, the cold nature of the hornets will cause them to become active and come out of the hole. They they will be bombarded by all of the other hornet spray.

8. You should have killed all of the live hornets by the time you get back to the office and not been stung.

Spray with a clear coat (lightly) and they'll last forever. We have one that is over 20 years old we got while hunting.

Also, when you put it in your office on display, don't be surprised if you come into the office for a week or two and two or three hornets have hatched out. Pay them no mind and open the door for them. They will leave when the nest is disturbed and not sting you.

Simple isn't it. 🙂

I was setting 3' stakes in the woods for a proposed detention pond a couple years ago. I finished driving the first stake, hooked my retractable tape to the stake and picked up the stake bag. I didn't make it more than one or two steps before they were everywhere. I did my usual 50' yard dash slapping myself silly with my boonie hat and then stopped to assess the situation. They were still hitting me so I took off again striping as I went because I realized that they were up my pants and my shirt. With the proper motivation it is definitely possible to remove your pants without first removing your boots.:-$

nests

Or, wait until you find one that's abandoned.

Those must be some domicile critters you found, just sitting on their nest posing for pictures. The ones I have encountered fight to the last man standing and I would have to hit the bushes and run and brush against cedars and other shrubs until they gave up the chase.

They don't just sting, they attach themselves by clinging on to your hair and start biting and stinging until their stinger stays in your body. YOu got to grab and smush them to death for them to stop.

A teaspoon of orthene would end their terror, but they outlawed that. Found them in my back yard to a house I moved into. Sprayed my yard with an ounce of orhtene to two gallons of water, no more yellow jackets or any other insects and a dog or cat would not poo in my yard for years.

I agree, if you are under attack, and they are in your hair or clothes, you have to pinch them quickly between thumb and finger to keep them from stinging repeatedly.