Bee Advice Wanted / Smart Bees, Dumb Me

Anonymous Poster · Sep 25, 2001

...I inadvertently stepped on a nest, walked off, felt a pin prick on my back, sometimes feel things like that, no big deal then another, then another, OW....

Del,

From that statement, I just know... you've been walking on our property lately... /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Bird · Sep 25, 2001

del, my wife might think she could break your record. One day we were riding slowly around the lake (on a paved road) on the Aspencade, and suddenly I realized she wasn't still with me. I stopped and looked back and she was standing in the road with her helmet in her hand. She said a bee flew under her face shield and she had bailed off without saying a thing./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif How she was able to do it and land on her feet, I'll never know.

Bird

Harv · Sep 25, 2001

that picture looks like what I thought was a hornet nest instead of bees

Now that you mention it, the closeup below does show the critter to have a mighty slim waistline. Does that put him in the hornet family?

I've never known of yellow jackets nesting underground

Seen it too many times out here. Don't have any pictures, but there's no mistaking their hidey-hole when you find it. I just follow the instructions on a can of Wasp and Bee Killer (by the Raid people?) -- wait 'til dusk, when they're all kicking off their shoes in front of the TV, and nail the entrance with a blast of the juice. The pressurized can delivers a stream, not a spray, and is easily aimed from a distance of 6 feet or so. Seems to be one hundred percent effective. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird · Sep 25, 2001

I don't know for sure, Harv, but whatever that critter is, I don't think we have any of them around here. I don't recall ever seeing anything quite like it anyway.

And I've used only one of those cans of spray that shoots the stream several feet; worked quite well on red wasps that were coming out of a hole in the wall of an old house.

wait 'til dusk, when they're all kicking off their shoes in front of the TV, and nail the entrance

When I was a kid and we moved the bee hives, we'd wait until dark, stick a plug in the entrance hole to the hive, load 'em on the pickup and move them to the new location, set them off (you could hear a lot of angry activity in there), and go away for an hour or two. Then we'd go back and pull the plugs out of the entrances after they had time to settle down. Only trouble was, we didn't even have a TV back then, much less the bees./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

Anonymous Poster · Sep 25, 2001

...we didn't even have a TV back then, much less the bees...

Bird,

Are you trying to tell us they listen to the radio fireside chats with FDR...? /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

Bird · Sep 25, 2001

John, I'm definitely gettin' old, but not quite that old./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif Harry Truman was president. Of course, we didn't have a TV until I was 14; we thought we were really uptown when we got running water in the house./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

PaulT · Sep 25, 2001

Bumblebees are actually referred to (by my exterminator, at least) as carpenter bees. The reason for this name is also the reason you haven't seen any bumblebee/carpenter bee hives - they bore into wood and live inside the wood. The nest I had was inside a 2x8 deck joist that was old and dry (not dry rotted). The wood was still pretty thick near the hive, unlike a termite infestation, so there was still some strength to the wood. I looked at the entrance hole, didn't find an alternative exit/entrance, so I just nailed a piece of wood over the hole and trapped them all inside. I probably shouldn't have, as they are very docile (for a stinging creature), but my little boy doesn't need any stings, docile or not! The deck is long gone now, as we remodeled 2 years ago.

PaulT

msocko3 · Sep 25, 2001

That closeup looks like a picture of a bald face hornet. They can be quite aggressive and the nest can be quite large. I've seen the nest built larger than what a burlap sack could be put over.

Anonymous Poster · Sep 25, 2001

Bird, that must have been painful, going over the "sissy" bar (if so equipped).

Speaking of walking on other property, I have some other property and I was walking the property line last Father's Day. Didn't know it but I walked right on top of a nest. I hadn't run out of survey tape so kept on going about 40 feet, then looked back and stretched the line straight. At that time I saw the furry right over where I had been walking. I figure it was my Father's Day present from the Big Guy... Couldn't possibly have been my dumb luck!

del

Harv · Sep 26, 2001

That closeup looks like a picture of a bald face hornet.

I think you nailed it, msocko3. This picture of a Bald Faced Hornet from an extermination web site looks mighty similar to my not-so-welcome guests: