6' yellow jacket nest found in FL

[aczlan]

Apparently there was a 6' yellow jacket nest nest that someone found in FL:

TAMPA, FL -
Jonathan Simkins is an expert in flying insects. He has a degree in entomology from the University of Florida, and has been working in the industry for more than twenty years.
Simkins is the owner of Insect I.Q. He travels all over Florida to deal with honey bees, Africanized bees, yellow jackets and other stinging insects.
Recently, he faced the challenge of his life.
Simkins was called to a large, privately-owned tract of land in Central Florida to deal with a huge yellow jacket wasp nest.
"I have never seen a nest this large in my entire life," said Simkins. "This is the prehistoric nest from the dinosaur ages."
He says the nest was more than six and half feet tall, and eight feet wide. It may have contained more than a million insects.
"To put it into perspective, a nest we deal with on a day to day basis might have a thousand to five thousand," Simkins said.
Simkins shot his own video of the nest before he eradicated it.
As he approached the nest, the worker wasps attacked him and his equipment.
In the video you can hear hundreds of wasps hit the camera. The buzzing is non-stop, and Simkins' voice is clearly tense.
"I have to be honest with you, I was terrified at one point, and there were several times that I had to pull out and get a breather. My heart rate was racing, I had hundreds of them on my veil," said Simkins.
He used a spray and his own technique to kill the entire nest.
Simkins says if someone had walked up to the nest unawares, and riled the wasps, they could have been killed..
"We definitely did save lives. This land is hunted. It's leased out for hunters, if somebody comes across this, you're not going to get away. You can see in the video, I run a hundred yards away and I sill have thousands of yellow jackets chasing me, all over me, trying to kill me," said Simkins.
The video ends the next day as Simkins walks up to the nest without his protective helmet on. Simkins stands next to the remains of the huge nest, and declares it dead.

I'll bet that his helmet was on for his first approach to the nest on the next day...

Aaron Z

 

[Midniteoyl]

I would've been dead just seeing it.. Not enough EPI pens in the world..

 

[rtimgray]

Holy hornets, Batman! I hope I never see something like that with my own eyes. Thanks for posting.

 

[dmccarty]

Yellow Jackets have gotten me at least four times. The nests were small and had small numbers of insects. That monster nest is scary....

I do believe Thingy would have had to use A LOT of gas to take out that nest. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[cqaigy2]

Some years ago, I remember seeing a picture of a nest of 'german' yellowjackets in the attic of a house. It was huge! The article was about how they don't die down in the winter like the local ones did so we can expect much bigger nests from them. Another interesting thing was noted was those on the east coast were more aggressive then the ones on the west coast.

 

[aczlan]

Some years ago, I remember seeing a picture of a nest of 'german' yellowjackets in the attic of a house. It was huge! The article was about how they don't die down in the winter like the local ones did so we can expect much bigger nests from them. Another interesting thing was noted was those on the east coast were more aggressive then the ones on the west coast.

Saw a nest of bald face hornets once that I thought was big, it was 1-2' in diameter and 5-6' tall (in a barn on the wall), but this one looks like Jabba the Hutt...

Aaron Z

 

[fordmantpw]

I got into a nest of yellow jackets cutting grass once. The nest was underground and I was trimming around the tree that was above it. I got hit 17 times, and it scared the **** out of me! Completely covered (including ski mask) and armed with a can of wasp spray in each hand, I took out the nest later that day. It was only about 1' x 4" or so, so I can't imagine something like this. Sadly, all of the wasp spray I used killed the 6' tall tree the nest was under.

 

[rekees4300]

WOW! Like something out of a nightmare!

 

[Western]

Wow , he could have got a fortune for that nest! Someone would have bought it and had it shipped to their X, or a lawyer!

 

[aczlan]

Wow , he could have got a fortune for that nest! Someone would have bought it and had it shipped to their X, or a lawyer!

The problem would have been finding someone willing to load and ship it...

Aaron Z