Wasps

[ampsucker]

i won't tolerate wasps around and close to the house.

i will remind everyone, however, that wasps and bees are both very valuable to the garden. honey and bumble bees are key pollinators in both the garden and fruit orchard. wasps are key predators devouring many larvea and caterpillars of other harmful crop insects.

neither wasps nor bees are a serious competitor for foods humans usually eat. (half empty soda cans not being considered a serious contribution to human or insect nutritional needs!)

so, unless they are in a space where they might be dangerous to you or your family, best to leave them alone to do their job.....

amp

 

[Mike Costello]

I've had a few rumbles with wasps and learned early on that they can't see at night, so they won't move from their nests. Thus, its fairly easy to dispatch them with your spray of choice if it becomes necessary.

My wife was mowing the lawn one day and discovered a HUGE yellowjacket nest in a pine tree near the border of the lawn. I took a look and there must have been over a hundred wasps on that nest! Told her to shut down the mower and wait until dark so I could remove them. Next thing I know, she's sneaking up on them with wasp spray and lets fly with the stream of spray. Well, being nervous and all...she missed! Never thought she could run that fast! She believes me now when I tell her wasps won't fly at night.

 

[Treemonkey1000]

I found out about brake cleaner and carb cleaner working so fast. I did one of my "what was I thinking" moves a few years ago. The yard light had burned out at the end of my house so I wanted to change the light bulbs. Then I noticed yellow jackets flying in and out of the vent at the peak of the house going into the attic. I didn't want to spray anything on the vent and discolor the vinyl siding. So I climbed up on the step ladder with my 5 gallon shop vac going. I stuck the nozzle in the hole that they were using. These bee's were all shook up with that noise. So they kept flying out of the hole and getting sucked up by the vacuum. New bee's were flying back from their rounds and getting sucked up. I was thinking oh this won't take long. 20 minutes later I am still sucking up lot's of bee's!. So I figured maybe this was a bigger nest than what I had anticipated. I decided to leave the lights wait until the first frost which would kill the bee's. Meanwhile I had a shop vac all full of really p***ed bee's. They were humming in that vacuum. So I sprayed bee killer down the hose. There was 2" of bee's in the bottom of that Vacuum. In the fall I went up to find the nest was 36" tall x 24" wide x24" deep.

 

[YesDeere]

When I was about ten I used to horseback ride with one of my dads friends.He was and still is a tough old man. showed me a lot. Well he spots a giant nest on a limb and decides he wants it. "HOLD THE TRASH BAG BOY" don't know how we didn't get stung. He let em die off and had a perfect hive to display. GOOD TIMES

 

[JB4310]

In the fall I went up to find the nest was 36" tall x 24" wide x24" deep.

Wow, that must be about as big as they get, good thing you didn't do what I did at my old house, I was doing some exterior painting and filled some big holes with caulk, next day I go down the basement, I'm walking in the dark to the light switch and I'm walking on what I thought was popcorn, crunch-crunch-crunch.

Flick the light on and it was a scene out of a horror movie!!! the walls, floors, benches were crawling with bees they weren't flying just crawling they seemed very small, don't know if they were just getting ready to leave the nest and couldn't find the exit.

After the initial shock I wasn't that scared since they seemed helpless, I also used a vacuum on them.

JB.

 

[EddieWalker]

I learned about red legged waspes when I moved here to Texas. Before moving here, I never had any problems with wasps or hornets, but had been stung by the occasional bee.

Working on homes, I've found that they really don't like the chop saw. Using it, I saw them fly by and buzz me, but didn't know what was happening. A few cuts later, I was hit on the back of my head. The only way to describe it is to say it felt like a person hit me with a piece of lumber. But than after the sting, it burned for hours.

My approach to them is still evolving, but after being stung a few more times, I don't play with them any more. If one buzzes me, or I see one flying around, I stop what I'm doing and go on the attack.

They really like to live in attics. They will find a way in through the eve or soffit of a house and almost always come and go through the same place. I watch them and find this place.

First thing in the morning, when it's still cool out, I blast that spot with some wasp spray. They all work the same. Once I spray, they will come out one or two at a time. I blast them in the air, they fall down, and I stomp them. I've killed dozens this way, which is usally the size of the nest. I then caulk up the opening that they are using and don't have any more problems with them.

If I come aross a nest, I will attack it with spray. Just spray it and anything that moves. It works.

Eddie

 

[Treemonkey1000]

Wow, that must be about as big as they get, good thing you didn't do what I did at my old house, I was doing some exterior painting and filled some big holes with caulk, next day I go down the basement, I'm walking in the dark to the light switch and I'm walking on what I thought was popcorn, crunch-crunch-crunch.

Flick the light on and it was a scene out of a horror movie!!! the walls, floors, benches were crawling with bees they weren't flying just crawling they seemed very small, don't know if they were just getting ready to leave the nest and couldn't find the exit.

After the initial shock I wasn't that scared since they seemed helpless, I also used a vacuum on them.

JB.

Yes JB I was amazed at how big that thing was. I have seen basketball sized nest in barns and such. Nothing like this. I sliced it off the wall and gave to my daughter to show in her school. But it was so fragile it fell apart too much. That's weird your bee's weren't stinging mad. Doing a tree job one time and got nailed in the forearm by a wasp twice. I wasn't even close to the nest yet. My arm swelled up for 2 weeks. Which is a first for me. The owner went out that night and sprayed it with some sort of bee spray.

 

[JB4310]

I got one in the right outer ear and it was like Eddie said, like some one hit me in the head with a bat, that was by far my worst sting, had multiple stings at once that weren't as bad.

Another one was in my left hand, I just shook it off and didn't pay much attention to it while I was working, later on I went to put my hand in my pocket and it wouldn't go, it got kinda freakishly big by that night and the swelling did hurt.

JB.

 

[Matt_Jr]

Last year I kept finding bees in the basement next to the french doors. Thought they were getting in when I left the doors open to move stuff in and out. Found them for several days. Couldn't figure it out. Then while out weed-eating early one morning I saw a bunch of little shadows on the ground. Looked up and seen two lines of bees going in and out the electric service line hole where the putty came loose. Walked in the basement and was very intrigued by the size of that nest up in the floor joists and insulation. Now my wife.. she would run out in front of a truck to avoid getting stung by a bee, so I told her to go shopping but not to go in the basement. Of course she listened..there were bees down there. Me-I'll let 'em crawl on my arm..NOT my neck though. Anyhow I set the thermostat down as low as it would go and shut all the upstairs vents. I went outside and finished cutting the grass. After several hours I noticed the basement wasn't getting cold enough to slow them down, and my electric bill was probably climbing so what the heck. I put on some long sleeves and sprayed the crap out of them. Then filled the hole with foam. How come I always remember the nest being bigger than it really was? I still feel bad about killing all those bees.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I was working on a construction job once and a swarming hive of bees landed on a piece of structural steel and just clustered up. The Safety Dept. wanted to kill them, but one of my welders said he kept bees and would like to capture them.. He just took a 5 gallon plastic bucket and a ladder and climbed up with his bare hands and raked all the bees into the bucket. OF course the queen was underneath all those workers so she went in the bucket also. He popped a lid on the bucket and that was that. He set the bucket on the ground and cut a small hole in the top. The bees that were still flying around would finally go into the bucket. He said the hole was large enough for the worker to come and go but not the queen and they would not abandon their queen. By quitting time, almost all the bees were in the bucket. He had put a few more air holes in the bucket and the taped up the worker entrance hole before transporting them home. He put them in a hive box with a metal plate at the entrance to keep the queen from escaping and the workers started doing their thing to make the new hive box their home.
If you guys find a hive invading your home, call a local beekeeper and they will come extract them for you, maybe even pay you for the bees. Much better than killing.