Yellow Jacket Nests While Bush hogging, whats your plan?

[Brewsky]

Although not involving mowing, a few years ago my wife was fussing with flowers along the woodline about 50 yards from the house when the screaming started. By the time I reached her she was dancing over the nest with the critters surrounding her and getting into her clothes. I spent the next moments stripping off her clothes to bra/panties, helping her run and swatting. Although she fared well with the stings, the neighbors are still talking!

 

[DaveNJ]

About a month ago I saw a couple of small mounds of fine soil (like tiny pebbles) that resembled an ant hill about 1½" tall, but with a opening hole the size of the body of a Sharpie marker. I curiously put a pine needle down the hole and it stopped a good 5 or 6" deep. 'Huh?' I thought to myself. I smoothed it over with my boot covering it up, stepped on it to compress the soil and left it. It reappeared a day or so later... Around that time I saw the largest yellow jacket I have ever seen- about the length of three 'normal ones' but with substantial girth. I realized it was a queen creating a nest. Got the wasp spray and held down the nozzle until the hole was filled and covered it up.

That was probably a Cicada Killer. They are large solitary wasps matching your description. They paralyze a cicada and fly it back to the hole in the ground. One egg is laid on the cicada and the larva eats it alive when it hatches. They almost never sting humans- unless they do something lik you did. A friend of mine was stung when tried to kill one on a window sill with a kleenex. He described the sting being like stabbing through your thumb with a blunt screwdriver.

 

[groundcover]

As a youngster I was mowing at my grandmas , a birdhouse had fallen of the tree it was attached to so I grabbed it and put it on the hood of the tractor to bring it back to the house. The noise and vibration was quite a motivator and the bees that had moved in came out at an astounding rate ! I left the tractor running and took up running myself!
Went back after dark , gassed up the tractor, put it away and haven't trusted a birdhouse since!

 

[Richard]

Don't let those little SOB's fool you..... they are fast.

Years ago, I was cutting back side....I was on a hill and mowing down, verses up. I stirred up a nest and they were buzzing about. Pointed downhill, I simply pushed clutch in and gained speed coasting verses taking the time to stop, clutch, change gears, get moving again.

So I'm rolling down hill at a bit of a 'bouncy' pace... wonder what's going on behind me so I turn around to look back. There was one of them 'keeping up' with me.

In a blink of an eye, I had the thought go through my head "thank God the little SOB isn't gaining any ground on me"....I look to see how much further/longer I can coast... I have plenty of room. Turn around again to see if I'm out-pacing the little SOB and nope, he's keeping up with me.

All the sudden, he went from 10-15' away, goes into attack mode and in a near blink of an eye, BAM, covered that distance and nailed me on the forehead as I recall.

He wasn't in genuine attack mode prior....he was merely loafing along, probably chasing me away and when I got far enough, he decided to add some insult to injury by nailing me with a sting so I might know what they can do if I ever go back.

It really astounded me how he instantaneously covered that distance.

 

[yomax4]

Just ran across a large nest 2 days ago. Seems at least twice a year I have to battle the ornery little sob's. We have a ton of wasp nests everywhere and many bald faced hornet paper nests hanging from the trees but they will cut you some slack. The little ground hornets simply look for any reason to attack.
A couple years back my wife accidentally dug up a nest while moving some flowers. She was stung 33 times an they chased her for 150 yards.. Nasty little buggers.

 

[DGZRT]

A few years ago I had a ground bee nest under my side walk by my front door . I tried a lot of different things . Bee spray , gas , diesel, antifreeze, a hose running over night and still they survived . While looking on my shelf for something else to try I saw my Gallon of premixed Home defense bug spray . Got it at Walmart for 6$ I figured what the heck nothing else worked and it’s cheap !! Dumped the whole gallon at night and the next day they were gone . Cheapest and easiest thing I have found ….

 

[BnRidge]

I used to keep honey bees out on one of the back lots. I thought it was interesting that mowing the lawn nearby never seemed to initiate any adverse response. None. Maybe it was the vibration, type of bees etc. I had the trailer hooked up behind once, and decided to drive over and check up on them. What I didn't remember was that the trailer was a bit wider than the tractor. So - what to do - the bewildered feeling was overcome almost instantly. Glasses broke, hat gone, high gear wasn't fast enough. The next time has never happened since. Running sounds like a better plan if I had to choose. Avoiding them even better. Otherwise, every year there always seems to be a couple of yellow jacket nests near the barn doors. There are a lot of doors - and it's always by one of them. They build in the hay mow above. This time of year they are at their population peak, and their food sources will be coming to a close, so they tend to get a little ornery. So far if I stay calm and leave them alone, they leave me alone.

 

[DABit]

I flip my tractor in high gear and ride away while swatting. I figure nothing runs like a Deere, I can't out run the tractor or the yellow jackets.

 

[Flad]

We have some nasty ground dwelling spiders the Sydney funnel webs that rare up and attack with fangs that can penetrate leather boots very aggressive and deadly if you don't get help quickly, also inch ants big nasty ants with a painful bight, then we have the imported European wasps much the same as your yellow jackets fom how they are described evil ,agressive, and often attack in swarms if it's a big nest, they are known to kill animals as well as humans, early summer is the worst hear for mud wasps, I had a nest built in a 14" pedistal grinder between both wheels and the guards, locked it up solid, had them build nests in exhaust pipes on ride on mowers, chain saws and even in the gas rings in my out door cooker, these wasps don't seem to bother atacking, or atleast I have never been stung by them, just cause plenty of headaches ,any thing with a hole in it they will plug it up.

 

[Torvy]

Seems like maybe someone could invent an attachment that unleashed smoke and wasp killer from a rear remote or the rotary cutter.

Not everyone has the option of a cab.

 

[check]

Scary stories, guys. The only time I have come across the ground nest was this summer, when I pulled up to buy to stick that had rotted out over the ground. They swarmed up around the hole, but they didn’t attack me. So I went back later in the evening and sprayed the nest with wasp spray

 

[mapper]

It's just a small hole in the ground.

Often there are a lot of little dirt pellets and bird shot size pebbles around the hole.

 

[mapper]

I am always very attentive of how I am feeling after yellow jacket stings. I have a couple horror stories of friends that have never had reactions to it almost dying from it. I now always have an Epi-Pen in my truck now, it could save mine or someone else's life. While we are on the topic, what do you use to treat/ease the pain from stings?

Adolfs meat tenderizer, papayin breaks down the venom, also baking soda and water paste. Never needed it for myself, stinging sensation goes away in a few minutes. Knock on wood that I don't become sensitive or allergic to stings as I get older.

 

[mapper]

I have disturbed quite a few yellow jacket nests in the ground both plowing and brush hogging. We must have a different type around here, I've never been stung while on the tractor. They swarm around a foot or two off the ground but never attacked me. I've also driven past black hornet nests (3-4" from the rear tire) without getting attacked, lots of sphincter pucker however.
Most of the new hornet sprays seem to be pretty ineffective. Spectricide Pro seems to be the exception, it works very well and leaves a residue that stays toxic to bugs for about 8 weeks. It works well on above ground nests, most underground nests you can't deliver the spray to the nest. For those I use the gasoline and rock on the hole method. For rock walls and under the house siding, use the shop vac treatment. Takes a few days of periodic vacuuming to kill the colony however.
You don't need to add water or soap to the vacuum tank, just use the standard filter bag, the little deflector in the tank does a great job killing them when they slam into it at 100 mph! Never had any climb out of the vacume alive!

 

[kubota4me]

I wish I had a cab over tractor. I have a Kubota L4400. One time I was working on my prairie clearing dogwood and sumac out with a big Stihl Forestry trimmer, the type that have a saw blade on instead of heavy string. Anyway, the trimmer is heavy enough you have to have a vest on that has a hook whereby you hang the trimmer on and swing it from side to side to use it. Anyway, I was out trimming one day and suddenly I felt sharp pains on my back and in short order I realized a bunch of hornets had gotten inside my shirt on my back. I couldn’t get my heavy plated vest off because I was belted in it. The only thing I instinctively did was bang/ram my back against a tree multiple times until I felt the stinging stop. When my wife heard me yelling and got over to me to help me get out of my Stihl vest and shirt, my back looked like a pepperoni pizza. I won’t ever forget that experience. This year for some reason (extreme drought and heat living in Iowa) we had bald faced hornets in our garden and on our prairie. I was freaked out by them and bought a beekeeper suit and head bonnet. The ordinary paper wasps are ******* by comparison. I haven’t used the suit yet because of the weather change most of the hornets have disappeared. I have been putting homemade wasp traps up made out of plastic water or soda bottles and catching tons of them. I’m still freaked over them and probably won’t do tractor work clearing dead trees until in November when we have many hard freezes here in Iowa.

 

[Bocephous]

I had a ground nest that I was unaware of at the edge of my yard/field last year.
During our daily dog walk I was looking at some wild grape vines, turned around, and realized my older female pit bull, Fiona, was sitting down and covered with yellow jackets. I quickly urged her off the nest (she was actually sitting on the hole) and into another part of the yard, where I brushed all the yellow jackets off her (must have been 30 or 40 of them).

I didn't know how many times she had been stung so I drove her to my wife's place of employment, a veterinary hospital. Turns out Fiona was fine and she had only been stung a few times.

When I got back home I put my 20ish gallon sprayer in the back of our side by side, and mixed up about 5 or 6 gallons of Bifenthrin. I backed it to within about 25 feet of the hole, turned it on and started spraying. End of that nest.

I've actually brush hogged several paper nests over the years; not sure what was in them. Probably bald faced hornets. I never got stung, and actually never noticed what I had done til the next lap. I just modified my mowing pattern and it worked out in my favor.

 

[Lawnranger]

Shut down, crank wheel uphill,bail and run. If I suspect a nest I carry a can of spray in my cup holder.

 

[bgr]

Many interesting and frightening experiences. Problem with running a machine is the noise of the motor drowns out the sound of the insect so you don't know you are being attacked till you feel the first sting. Diesel exhaust seems to confuse them, so running machine away at full speed may be better.

Two years ago I hit a bald faced hornet nest in tall grass and damaged it. They started coming out. Backed up over nest and shredded it completely to prevent more coming out. All the hornets in the air stopped attacking as soon as the nest was shredded. I repeated for the next nest I ran into and it worked again.

Not sure if this is a reliable method I would recommend to others, but it worked for me. Probably best not to mow at the end of summer and wait till cooler in fall.

 

[deserteagle71]

Me, I just smile as they slam against the cab windows.

 

[sallyb]

Bleach if you have it, and also meat tenderizer, I find bleach the most effective if you can use it within about 30 minutes. I also keep a gallon of bleach in my vehicle in winter, poor some on tires when having to back up or start driving.