It Bee That Time of Year Again

dixiedrifter · Sep 22, 2005

About 10 minutes ago I was rudly awakened by a red paper wasp in my room.

Never even knew it was even in my bedroom... was pitch black with the AC blowing right on me... **** bastard still got me in my sleep.

It just got a dose of generic carb and choke cleaner... stinks like **** but usually drops them on the spot.

Now I have to let my room air out before I can go back to bed...

I didn't get to sleep till after 2AM cause I had to help replace a shaker screen on a combine.

Noodlearm · Sep 22, 2005

Great thread. The yellow jackets are definately the worst in my book. They are the only ones that seem to attack for no reason. The others only seem to attack if you are near or disrupting their nest. Also, not to get specific but many people confuse the yellow jackets with paper wasps and mud daubers. They all look very similar but the paper wasps and daubers are nowhere near as hostile and have MUCH smaller nests. We had a yellow jacket nest removed from our drywall last year that had (according to the pest control guy) around 20,000 of them. Typical nests can be between 1,500 and 15,000 or so with some getting as large as 50,000. The paper wasp are usually around 50 or so with the mud daubers being solitary i believe, and from what I understand, they don't even defend their nests and rarely sting. Sorry for the long ramblings, but after being infested with them last year, I researched and found out as much as I could about them.

dixiedrifter · Sep 23, 2005

I've gotten into a few yellow jacket nests, but luckily they don't nest around the house/barn area.

There are lots of mud daubers around the house, but like you said, they generally don't bother you if you don't bother them.

But what I do have is red wasps, lots and lots of them nesting all over the freaking place. Some of the bigger nests are almost the size of my hand...

This spring when they first came out, there was literally hundreds of them flying around the outside of my house... I have never in my life seen so many of them. I was killing 2-3 of them per day that managed to somehow get into my room. It was so bad you couldn't hardly walk outside without getting attacked.

After a while I found and nuked several of their nests at night, then the wood destroying bumble bees came out and for the most part ran the remaining wasps off. Seems as though the bumble bees don't like them in their "territory".

And as always, fall is about here, and the wasps are getting more and more desperate to do what they gotta do before it turns cold... and whatever fall does to them, let me tell ya it makes them get mean this time of year.

Highbeam · Sep 23, 2005

Here's an odd question.... do bee hives make it through the winter? Anybody ever had a bee hive come back to life in spring?

Jstpssng · Sep 23, 2005

Do you mean actual bee hives, or hornets nests? Honey bees put up honey, and stay in their nests all winter. They remain active, and feed on the honey they put up in summer.. Bumblebees and hornets on the other hand stay with the nest until they die from the cold; while the fertilized queen finds someplace to hibernate.

Beekeepers check their hives throughout the course of the winter, to make sure they are surviving.

jjcc246 · Sep 23, 2005

I'm not being sarcastic here, but it just blows my mind how many hits a post about a bee sting has gotten. Just needed to say that. Thanks for listening.

Farwell · Sep 23, 2005

The main reason for my interest is that I want all of the available information on how to avoid the stinging critters and with some folks getting stung is a real life and death situation.
Farwell

Highbeam · Sep 24, 2005

I was actually referring to wild nests of flying stinging things and not specifically the white boxes for honey. Good to know the wild ones die every year as sort of revenge. Also, I can ignore the nests in my eves since they will die soon anyway. Why risk it now?

I got my epipens this evening. Now I am as ready as I'll ever be to survive a mass stinging. Funny thing about them is that they need to be kept at a pretty specific temperature. Pretty much within a 27 degree window 59-86. Like that's going to happen. My glove box gets mighty warm in the summer and cold in the winter. Epinepherin is pretty much the same as adrenalin, excuse my spelling, so I am expecting a little jolt when/if I have to use it.

JimMorrissey · Oct 2, 2005

I've never had a problem with Yellow Jackets....It's the **** wasps and hornets (not sure the difference), but boy do they put a hurtin' on me. One got my hand about six weeks ago and I couldn't move it cuz it was swollen so badly. Yesterday one just stung me out of the blue on the back of my calf while I was grouting some tile and now my whlole lower leg is swollen up. I could hardly get my shoe on today. I will kill wasps and hornets till the cows come home with no remorse.

Farwell · Oct 3, 2005

Sounds like you may need to get a test for allergies, if you haven't done so already. If you get stung in the wrong spot it could end all your wasp and hornet worries.
If it stings, other than honey bees, it dies if it enters my living space.
Yellow jackets will eventually find you if you use a weed wacker or lawn mower very often. They hate the sound and feel threatened by it I guess.
Farwell