BS: They are bugging us

Subject: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 07:33 PM

Jacqui got stung by a hornet today, and I was going to give them a dose of RAID. However, the little bastards have made their nest right beside the well, and I don't want to pollute the water. Any ideas?

Maybe if I soak them every day with the garden hose they will leave?

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 07:44 PM

Dirt Doctor

Poke around at the site and see what they recommend.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 07:52 PM

They sell plastic domes with a base for each in our local hardware, even groceries stores, which hang from wherever you want to put them. There is a mix that you place in them which attracts them. IOnce they get in they cannot get out and die, then you can dispose of the whole thing according to your local landfill rules. I'll see if I can find the name of them.

IN the meantime, someone posted how to make your own trap: HERE and HERE with pictures!

But THIS ONE looks like the best of all with clear illustrations, etc.!

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 08:07 PM

http://www.winnipeg-bugline.com/insects-finding-and-removing-hornets-nests-active-nests-and-underground-nest-removal.html

http://unexco.com/gallery/hornets.html

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 07:51 AM

I guess I'd better build a trap. I don't want to drink water that tastes like RAID.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Midchuck
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 07:57 AM

I didn't think you drank water much anyway. Why start now?

(Nyuck, Nyuck!)

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:03 AM

Good excuse to go off the water and onto the Jameson's, eh?

Last night I went out and dumped a bucket of ice cubes on the nest opening. This morning I did the same thing again, then I put a small rug over the cubes.
Where do Yellow Jackets go in winter?

(Don't nobody say "Search me)

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:46 AM

I'll bite. Where do Yellow Jackets go in winter?

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:47 AM

I'm trying to picture how a hornet's nest can be "right beside the well". Do you guys in Maine have wells that are open to the sky? ...like the kind you draw your water up in buckets? ...and drop coins into and chase them with wishes? ...and hide dead bodies?

...'cause in Indiana, most wells are 60'-160' beneath the surface of the ground. I could empty twenty cans of Raid over my well and the chances of it seeping down 120' to my well opening, or significantly poluting the millions of gallons of water with which it would mix -- to the extent that I would ever be affected -- much less taste Raid -- would be astronomical.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:59 AM

"Where do Yellow Jackets go in winter?"

Georgia Tech?


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 12:16 PM

Our well is a dug well. It is lined with cyldrical sections of concrete, about three feet across, and installed in sections. It is about 15 feet deep.The top section rises above ground level about two feet high.

My question was tied to the fact that I dumped ice cubes on their entrance. What will their reaction be? Will they think it's an early winter?

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 12:30 PM

I don't think so. And I don't think you can drown them easily. They land on my mini waterfall to get a drink...some fall in. They climb out, dry off, fly away.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 12:31 PM

Kendall,

do you have Yellow Jackets living in the ground, or Hornets in a paper nest?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 12:32 PM

"What will their reaction be? Will they think it's an early winter?"

Probably not. My guess is that, like most of nature, their sense of "winter" is brought on by available light, not temperature. However, you could try singing, "Baby, It's Cold Outside", or "Sleigh Ride".

You could, on the other hand, smoke them out. Bee keepers can usually slow the movement of a hive by smoke. Figure out a way to engulf their hive in smoke, and you may be able to safely move the whole thing.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: pdq
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 01:15 PM

Very few insects are able to function properly at temperatures of 45ºF or lower. If these wasps can fly at that temperature, they will not be very fast or agile.

Also, consider that the wasps go into the hive for the night, so if you do anything damaging to them, it's best done at first light.

Try gently sliding a black plastic garbage sack over the hive and then quickly sealing the opening with tape. Again, best done as early in the morning as possible and when the temperature is 45ºF or lower.

If you are successful with the first bag, slip another one over the first. Then take a saw and cut off the branch.

A black plastic garbage bag placed in the direct sun will kill anything inside. No pesticides needed.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:00 PM

I had a nest of yellowjackets in the front lawn. The nest was in an underground chamber (how deep I cannot say) with a small exit hole, about the size of a dime, and they were cycyling in and out of it constantly. The became aggressive if you came too near it, and I had to mow the lawn, so they had to go.

I tried first to kill them by spraying wasp killer down the hole at night. This failed utterly. The wasp killer they sell now comes out in a foam, kind of like shaving cream, and the foam would not go far enough down the hole to do anything. By morning it would all have evaporated, and the yellowjackets would be starting their new day with no ill effects from it.

I tried that about 3 times. No good.

I thought about putting a screen type strainer over the hole at dawn, and foaming them when they came out....but I wasn't sure if that would be such a good idea. I don't like arousing an entire hive of those creatures in daylight.

I next thought of drowning them out. So I got the garden hose, pointed it right at their exit hole after dusk, and let it run all night. By morning there was a small pool of standing water there and the hive must have been totally flooded. No sign of them all the following day, so I figured that did the trick.

Well, it didn't! 2 days later they appeared to be back in business!

I could hardly believe it. Well, I figured if I couldn't drown them, then maybe I could convince them to move. I flooded out the nest in the same fashion 2 more times over the next week.

The third time did the trick. They either all died or they decided to pack up and find drier quarters, because I haven't seen them since.

The exit hole, by the way, got opened up some by the first flooding, and it turned out to be about the size of a chimpmunk hole. Now that they have departed I have filled it in with earth so that more of them don't get the same idea and move in there.

So, yes, flooding them out will eventually do the trick. They do not regard a slow nightime flood of water as an "attack" on the hive, by the way, they regard it as "bad weather", going by what I've seen.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:12 PM

Say, pdq, there was a guy in our neighborhood when I was a kid who tried the black garbage bag trick, just as you describe, only he made the gross mistake of doing it at dusk, not dawn! And he didn't use the tape to seal the opening...

The wasps (or hornets) were all still awake, they came pouring out into the bag, and it swelled up like a balloon. So here's this guy jumping around screaming and carrying on with a huge, humming garbage bag full of enraged hornets. He can't let go of it or they'll all come out. The hornets are not so stupid, and some of them begin stinging his hand right through the bag! So what does he do? He runs over to this big hedge at the edge of his property and HURLS the bag over the hedge and takes off like the roadrunner for his front door! The explosion of hornets above that hedge was something to see...but you wanted to see it from a good distance away. Our neighbour made it inside his house with only a few stings. I think he was lucky not to have been killed outright by that misadventure.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:14 PM

These are ground dwelling Yellow Jackets

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: pdq
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:20 PM

Key points: 45ºF or lower. First light. Tape bag ASAP, then add second bag. Cut off branch and place in open area (sunny).

A beekeeper's head gear and track shoes are certainly advisable.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: pdq
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:28 PM

"These are ground dwelling Yellow Jackets"

Then they are yellow jackets, not hornets. The 'bald-faced hornet' is much larger and makes a large paper nest in a tree, but may make it in a man-made structure such as barn (rare).

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:31 PM

In the case I described, by the way, there was no branch to cut off. The nest was one of those huge football-shaped nests, and it was hanging under the porch ceiling near the front door on our neighbour's house. So he put the bag quickly around the nest and pulled it off the ceiling...and that's when World War III started.

Boy, you had to see it to appreciate just how bad a spot that guy was in....

His situation was complicated by the fact that his daughter panicked and locked the front door shut. She was afraid the hornets would come in along with him.

That's why he spent the first, oh, 10 or 20 seconds screaming and pounding on the front door....before deciding to make a run for the hedge.

I wore the beekeeper's headgear and some heavy clothing on my first night attack on the yellowjackets, but it turned out to be unnecessary. They never reacted at all as far as I could see.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: pdq
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:37 PM

Sounds like the man is a soul brother to some winners of annual Darwin Award.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:57 PM

Kendall, pour some sack crete down the hole? Plug with rocks? I think we have a paper wasp nest somewhere...a lot like yellowjackets, but I think the nest is in a small hole in the eaves.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 03:27 PM

Here's what I'd do: First, locate and mark the exit hole. Then, go to the dollar store and buy a cheap, unlidded, white-plastic tall kitchen trash can and a 4-pack of sticky fly strips. Turn the can upside down and attach the flystrips inside of it so they're hanging down. Wait until after dark and put the rig over the nest's exit hole.

I wouldn't use a metal can since it would shut out all light and the yellowjackets' may respond by digging a new exit hole.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 03:59 PM

Yeah, if you plug their existing hole they find or make another one soon enough.

pdq, you are so right about that guy. He was one of the stupider people I have ever known, and a real loudmouth. He had the gift of the gab, you might say, but in a really irritating way. He was a saleseman, appropriately enough. ;-) He sold refrigerators and major appliances for the Hobart Company in the 1960s. We called him "Silent Sam, the Hobart Man". He never stopped talking.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 04:52 PM

I had to have a Yellow Jacket nest dealt with a few years ago. (Damn, they are aggressive. Didn't know the nest was there, ran the mower over it, and the little suckers chased me all the way from the front yard to the back door of the house.) The guy poured gasoline down the hole and lit it. It worked.

I recently found a new nest in another spot. Right now, however, we are in such a deep drought that tree roots and organic matter in the soil will burn, so I wouldn't let some one do that at present. Of course, all the grass is dead so I don't need to mow either.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 05:07 PM

I just made a trap for them.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 05:48 PM

Well, out here, folks just sit on the porch with some beer or something like, and watch the little buggers land. Just before they land, they shoot their balls off with a .22. The yellowjackets can't reproduce, so when the current generation dies that's it.

But I've improved on that. I shoot their stingers off, and then go in and capture them by hand, put 'em in a sack, and put the sack in the trash pickup. Sometimes I can shoot three or four stingers off with one bullet, so to save ammunition.

Dunno if this would work in Maine, though.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 06:47 PM

So you could use a gatling gun to wipe out a nest?

No raid in the water I guess.

Are you listening Kendall?

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 06:58 PM

Gatling guns are too hard to aim.

Use some 60% dynamite. Shove eight or nine sticks down the yellowjacket hole at night, punch the ol' detonator, and WHAM! No more yellowjackets!

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 07:35 PM

Nah, Rap, you got them yellerjackets confused with beaver dams!

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 07:39 PM

Betcha it'll work on yellerjackets, probably just as good as pouring a bunch of gasoline down the hole and tossin' in a match.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 07:47 PM

The gasoline method works great. I would've done that to the ones in my front yard, but the hole was too near to a couple of pine trees, so I couldn't risk it.

Here's a method that a friend and I used back in the days when kids could still buy those little firecrackers called "cherry bombs". There was a hive of yellow jackets in an old groundhog hole, and one of them came out and stung me on the ear while we were playing some distance away. Well, me and my friend came back around midnight and tossed a couple of lit cherry bombs in that groundhog hole. Cherry bombs made a hell of a bang. The concussion killed 'em all stone dead. We checked the next day and there were no yellow jackets stirring in that hole any longer.

I think it's a damn shame that a bunch of pussyfooting lawyers and petty bureaucrats and misguided do-gooders have deprived the boys of Canada of their cherry bombs, that's what I think. And I notice that kids are shooting people with guns now, which I never heard of a kid doing back when I was a kid. Big lot of good it's done taking away their cherry bombs!

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:07 PM

Maybe they did it because too many cherry bombs were taking away too many small fingers?

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:11 PM

Nuts. They did it because they're a bunch of petty, interfering, fussy old pests. I bet you can still buy cherry bombs in Texas.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:29 PM

I remember cherry bombs. Dad liked to blow up the mailbox with them on the Fourth of July.

I admit, Rapaire, that the gasoline method, while more effective, lacks the finesse of shooting off their little gonads.

The dynamite would certainly work, and a polluted well wouldn't be an issue, since the water in the well would probably move on to someshere else through the fractured substrate.

Hey Kendall, want we should all come and visit and help you get rid of those yellow jackets?

Seriously, let us know how the trap works. I like the idea that it is completely non-polluting. Pouring gasoline in the ground is probably more toxic than using pesticides (where pesticides can be used.)

Wish the little buggers would just set up housekeeping somewhere out of the way. I hate to have to kill things.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:32 PM

Those Canadian yellowjackets must be pretty wimpy if they can be killed by cherry bombs. All cherry bombs do to Florida yellowjackets is make 'em deaf. That'll make you think you killed 'em off 'cause they won't come out of their nest, but what they're really doing is learning sign language. As soon as they learn a few key words, they come back with a vengeance.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:37 PM

Ha! Caught you this time, Old Hoss... ;-) Those were USA-born yellowjackets. I was living in New York State at the time...about 20 miles from Syracuse.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 07:29 PM

I think you may be stuck with them for the rest of the season. Only the queen overwinters so you should try to find her as she emerges in late winter or early Spring. She will probably abandon the old nest, anyway, and find a new nesting site.

Right now the workers are especially active. The colony has probably grown to include a large number of yellow jackets which require vast amounts of protein. Stay away from them!

I've seen some great traps made from large pop bottles. These work quite well. In the meantime, don't bug them.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 07:42 PM

Seriously, if you can find all of the entrances you might consider dry ice. Not only will the cold slow them down, the CO2 will sink and kill them dead. No water pollution, either.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 08:09 PM

They do normally nest in a particular place for only one season, and only the queen survives over the winter, as Dianavan said. In the spring she will probably find a new site. I had such a nest in the east wall of the house, but up too high to get at without a tall ladder. They were entering the wall through a very small opening by an electrical line. I do not fancy taking on a yellowjacket nest while atop a tall ladder...so I left them alone. The following spring there was no sign of them right into normal yellowjacket season, so I eventually went up there and plugged the hole with spray foam so a future queen wouldn't get the idea to move in there. And none has.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 08:17 PM

The trap didn't work, so, I remembered some guy a while back who collected "killer bees" with a vacuum cleaner. Bingo...I waited for them to settle down just at the edge of dark and I rammed the hose into the hole. Up came the honeycomb and no more Yellow Jackets.
I could see them inside the transparent collection basket.

None of them will be hitting on my wife again.I too can do a "sting" operation.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:33 PM

Whoa! Neat idea!

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 11:17 PM

That's a good method if the vacuum fits the hole reasonably well. I had a friend who used to suck up individual hornets with a hose vacuum because there were so many coming into her house. The interesting thing was, they did not seem to regard it as an "attack", just as a heavy wind.

How did you dispose of them after sucking them all up? Wouldn't they remain alive inside the vacuum? Or did it kill them?

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 09:49 AM

I left them in it overnight, then this morning when they were still asleep I dumped them into the trash barrel.Some were still alive, but most were dead.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 10:08 AM

I think it would depend on the vacum. If the vac doesn't have a propeller type blade, (like a shop vac) most would live. A Kirby which does have the blade might chop them up.

We found that out the hard way sucking up miller moths with a shop vac. Forgot to put soapy water in the cannister, and they all crawled out the hose!

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:18 AM

Yeah, I would be concerned about them coming out of the hose awhile after it was turned off. I think I might spray a little Raid down the mouth of the vacuum while it was still going, and that would certainly finish them all off.

What my friend did with the vacuum and the hornets was interesting. She wanted to simply get the individual hornets that were mostly crawling around on her windows out of the house, so she stretched a nylon stocking over the end of the hose, thus creating a soft barrier through which the air could pass. By then turning on the vacuum she could direct the hose toward a single hornet, and he'd get sucked onto the nylon net and held there. She would then go to the front door, point the hose outside and turn off the vacuum. The puzzled hornet would fall off the hose, thinking "Ah...good. The big wind has ceased..." and it would fly off none the worse.

You could not do this with a nest, however, only with a single hornet at a time, so it would have been of no use in solving Kendall's problem with the yellowjackets.

In a really fierce wind hornets and wasps simply hunker down and hang on to whatever they can, waiting for it to pass. My uncle discovered this in his youth when he happened to drive his motorcycle at low speed over a wasp nest in a field. They all came pouring out to attack him, so he hit the accelerator and took off with this cloud of wasps pursuing him. Well, about 15 or 20 of them managed to land on him or the bike before he outdistanced the rest. Most were clinging to his jacket. They didn't sting, because they were paralyzed by the slipstream...they were just hanging on waiting for the big wind to stop. My uncle was flying down the road, and realizing with a sinking sensation that the wasps were not going to let go...they were going with him to his next destination. Sooner or later he would have to slow down and stop.

When he finally did stop, the wasps came to life and all got busy immediately attacking and stinging him, so he abandoned the bike and fled inside a building. He got several stings in the process.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:03 PM

Spraying RAID down the hose would kill them, but it may be inflammable and if it is, it could cause an explosion when it hits the motor which makes sparks as it runs.

Tomorrow is rubbish pickup, so any that are still alive will be wards of the town.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:40 PM

You sure you don't want to shoot their gonads off? It's great target practice.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 01:33 PM

If I can find the nest I might try this. They aren't really bothering anyone getting drinks out of the waterfall, but it's right next to the (cheap above ground) swimming pool. Don't want the grandson or the dogs stung.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 01:34 PM

1. The worker wasps that are out foraging are non-reproductive females, if I remember correctly.

2. Unless you get the queen, you will have no effect on the future wasp population.

Subject: RE: BS: They are bugging us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 02:31 PM

You have to lower the property values...as I did when I flooded that nest 3 times in a week. The Queen won't put up with crap like that...she'll insist on relocating elsewhere.