Ground hornets! [emoji2962]

[kenmbz]

I had a bald faced hornet flying outside my garage.
I was well into the garage working on something, I looked up and the hornet was headed straight at me.
Never been attacked while in an enclosed space before, and I was just arranging some shelves, did not even think the hornet could see me.
It didn't even sting me, just looped around me and I went into the house thinking it might be a good idea to wait a while.

Second time I had bf hornets challenge me that week.
I went on a search and destroy and found 3 nests in various trees.
Got them at night, spray from far away, but I could see a few outside the nest as guards, even at night.
Did not use the flashlight, too worried they would zero in on it.

in comparison YJ are pretty easy to take out at night, that's if they don't find you first!

 

[Jstpssng]

For some reason hornets largely leave me alone. I've been standing next to a nest and the guy behind me would get stung. Years ago we were walking past a small nest in a bush every day and one of the guys was allergic so I took a pair of long handled loppers, cut the bush, picked it up with the loppers and carefully walked it away from the line.
I have a freezer on my covered deck which isn't running. They built a nest in it and I would see them flying in through the grate, so for a couple of nights I brought my shop vac out, tapped the freezer and caught them as they came out.
After a few nights, no more nest.

 

[WinterDeere]

No fire needed. About a cup of gas, covered with a shovelfull of dirt, at night.

Bruce

This is what I do. Honestly, a gallon is total overkill, and not great for your ground water.

I fill a soup can 1/2 full with gas, tip it onto the hole, and run like hell. The fumes are heavier than air, and suffocate the colony.

It's fun to light it up a few hours later, after you're sure they're all dead from suffocation. But it's suffocation, and not fire, that's doing the killing work. Lighting it off probably helps reduce the amount of chemical left in the soil, but that's it.

We have a crazy number of wasps and hornets at this property. Example, I killed 14 in our living room on Friday, 19 on Saturday, and 4 on Sunday. Found the entrance to the next on Sunday morning, and hosed it with foaming wasp spray. Today we had only 5, but I'll hit it again this week to make sure the colony is dead.

More years than not, we have one nest form somewhere on the house, late summer or into fall, and they start finding their way in. Trouble is, it's a big old stone house, so as soon as we plug one gap, they find another the next year. This time, they're nesting under the cedar shake roof on our 1775 Summer kitchen addition, and finding their way in thru the fireplace flashing.

 

[DarkBlack]

My humble opinion… the only good yellow jacket is a dead yellow jacket.

Been painfully stung too many times, doing nothing to “disturb” them or their underground nests.
Evil little creatures

 

[Quaffer]

But it's suffocation, and not fire, that's doing the killing work.

That has been my experience.

 

[Jstpssng]

"I know it's gas, and gas is well, GAS. But it sure kills the #### out of those hornets."

Thingy, retired TBN member

 

[ponytug]

My humble opinion… the only good yellow jacket is a dead yellow jacket.

Been painfully stung too many times, doing nothing to “disturb” them or their underground nests.
Evil little creatures

I actually don't mind having them around, and I' quite allergic. They go their way, and I go mine.

The yellow jackets really help clean up the area. They will strip a squirrel carcass in six hours or so. It is pretty amazing at how quick they are. The slow bit is getting under the skin, and then they go to town.

We have mud daubers, some years paper wasps, and a "solitary", gorgeous, blue black wasp, with black wings, that loves to nest on one corner of the barn. I put solitary in quotes because the books are clear that the wasp in question is solitary, but when I see them at the barn, they are all buzzing in and out of one location on the barn. I've never seen them feeding.

I'm not wild about brown recluse spiders, cobras, green mambas, leopards, and wild pigs, but that's about it. Oh, yeah, and polar bears. Pretty much things that are acutely lethal, or actively hunt me.

All the best,

Peter

 

[WinterDeere]

I actually don't mind having them around, and I' quite allergic. They go their way, and I go mine.

Note that there are a few different species, with vastly different personalities, all referred to as “yellow jackets”.

I agree, the mean looking medium-bodied hard-shelled wasps that are nesting in my ceiling right now are a “live and let live” breed. But the ground-dwelling species we get around here, usually called “German yellow jackets” or “European yellow jackets”, are ruthlessly mean, with zero provocation. They’ll send a dozen warriors out to attack you, and chase you a hundred yards or more, if you just happen to walk within a few paces of their nest hole.

 

[kenmbz]

The mud daubers are non-agressive and I usually let them have their nests as long as not on the house.
Some of the other black wasps will just fly around you and those I don't bother with.

We get some aggressive black wasps in our rock walls, and they have attacked us with little provocation, those get sprayed immediately.

I once took a bald faced hornets nest down accidentally with a hedge trimmer. The hornets all flew towards the end of the trimmer, which I left for them to get revenge on, they did not get me luckily.

YJ I leave if they are far enough away, but within 100' of any building, they get the treatment.
They do help remove the rotten figs from my tree at the end of the fig season, they get a bit loopy on the fermented figs and don't bother me taking the good figs down.

 

[WinterDeere]

There are some long skinny brown ones, that look an awful lot like the black mud daubers, but thinner and meaner. I wonder if that's what you're seeing in your rock walls, Ken?

We get black mud daubers on our stone and stucco walls, particularly under the cover of our various porch roofs. But the ones we have seem to be as docile as lambs, nothing like the dark brown hornets.

I actually had an enormous black mud dauber fall down inside my boot (Muckboots Chore model) once, it fell out of a recessed lighting can while I was changing a bulb on the porch, and it didn't even sting me. I'm not sure if they have the same queen/worker social structure as other wasps, but if they do, this mama had to be a queen... she was huge. Anyway, I hear they pack quite a punch when they do sting, but you almost have to sit on one to make them sting.