daTeacha
Veteran Member
Presuming that by Yellow Jackets you mean the ground nesting critters that look a bit like honey bees and not the big black bees with yellow thorax's, I'd say you're doing very well for having been stung over a dozen times. Those guys are pretty vicious.
IF you can find the nest, one thing that might work is a little risky but really makes you feel better about being in a war with them. Get a riding mower or a simple walk behind, rev it up, and park it over the hole. They come flying out looking for trouble and find the blades. Takes a few minutes before they all come out, but they don't go back in.
You might want to get a long range can of RAID or something to blast the nest before you go in with the mower, just to slow them down.
If you have a little streak of crazy in you, you could build a nice fire in your bucket and then dump it on the nest, as long as the fire isn't too big nor burning too long to damage the bucket or hydraulic lines.
I've used my snow plowing clothes, a pith helmet, and mosquito netting when tackling one of those basketball size gray nests of White Faced Hornets without getting stung. I had snowmobile gloves that went halfway to the elbow with elastic bands at the top, heavy boots, taped ankles, etc. The nest was hanging over a neighbor's back door, on the house. I got a long pole, a loop of coathanger wire, a trash bag stuffed through the loop, and a loop of twine loosely taped around the neck of the bag and then back to me at the end of the pole.
Basic instructions: Slide open bag over nest, pull back and forth to knock the nest down, pull string to close the bag, and then throw the whole thing in a good sized fire. It is a little spooky to be walking around with a garbage bag filled with angry hornets, but I didn't get stung.
IF you can find the nest, one thing that might work is a little risky but really makes you feel better about being in a war with them. Get a riding mower or a simple walk behind, rev it up, and park it over the hole. They come flying out looking for trouble and find the blades. Takes a few minutes before they all come out, but they don't go back in.
You might want to get a long range can of RAID or something to blast the nest before you go in with the mower, just to slow them down.
If you have a little streak of crazy in you, you could build a nice fire in your bucket and then dump it on the nest, as long as the fire isn't too big nor burning too long to damage the bucket or hydraulic lines.
I've used my snow plowing clothes, a pith helmet, and mosquito netting when tackling one of those basketball size gray nests of White Faced Hornets without getting stung. I had snowmobile gloves that went halfway to the elbow with elastic bands at the top, heavy boots, taped ankles, etc. The nest was hanging over a neighbor's back door, on the house. I got a long pole, a loop of coathanger wire, a trash bag stuffed through the loop, and a loop of twine loosely taped around the neck of the bag and then back to me at the end of the pole.
Basic instructions: Slide open bag over nest, pull back and forth to knock the nest down, pull string to close the bag, and then throw the whole thing in a good sized fire. It is a little spooky to be walking around with a garbage bag filled with angry hornets, but I didn't get stung.
