wasps...

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cfz2882

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...And hornets.. I have a lot of the wasps that build the open cell nests under eaves and the like,mud daubers,a variety that stuffs grass into the end of hoses,and hornets that make the spherical paper nests.Usually do not cause a bother except building nests in low-usage cars,campers,riding mowers:Was going to repair water pump on small bulldozer and found a big nest under the hood-they were all home and slow on a 48* morning and a blast of Raid wasp & hornet spray took them out in seconds..Can now proceed with repairs. :)
 
I went this morning to work on a washer that’s been sitting outside for a while and I knew there was a wasp nest in the control panel as I’ve seen them flying in and out. I thought I’d catch them early this morning and get them all but it didn’t work that way. They started coming out before I could open the control panel. When the dust settled there were over 45 dead on the ground and I know at least 10 flew away. They are definitely a problem in the summer time here.
 
I was sort of blessed this summer I guess because I didn't have the annual influx of nasty yellow jackets buzzing around the front porch. For some reason they seem really attracted to me and I was forever jumping out of my chair and running in the house LOL.
 
 
Neighbor has been plagued with wasps and yellow jackets.  One of the dogs got stung on the mouth.  I noticed a few days later a large nest under the eave above the enclosed patio dog door.  He sprayed that one down.  I could see another further back toward the open patio area near his gas grill and four more on the eaves of the 2nd floor.  He dealt with the small one near the grill, the other four are still up there.  He reported finding another on the fence obscured in vegetation near the dog door, which is probably the source that stung Wally.  He was mowing at a property in town, went across a large nest in the ground and got stung four times before getting far enough away.

I have more mud dauber nests than wasps and yellow jackets, although I noticed a red wasp nest under my mailbox a couple days ago, sprayed it promptly.  I was chased by a few several years ago when mowing past my low water well structure, sprayed all around the roof of it.  A couple years later when lifting off the removable roof to put in a heat lamp for the Big Freeze Event, there was a HUGE but dead paper nest inside.
 
In  1973 I was 22 and renting a tiny 1 bedroom cottage in Petaluma, Calif.  One night in the Summer on a particularly hot night during a heat wave I woke up from a sound sleep because I’d been stung by something.  Before I could turn the light on I was stung 3 more times.  When the light came on I was petrified at the sight of hundreds of yellow jacket/wasps droning about 1” above my bedspread and then falling down like they were drugged.

 

I leaped out of bed in one fell swop and dashed out of the bedroom, swiftly closing the door behind me.  There was about a 1.25” gap under the bedroom door so I jammed towels underneath the door to keep the wasps in the bedroom.

 

In the morning I had to open the door because the bathroom was off of the bedroom and I had to get ready for work.  Miraculously, the wasps had retreated.  So, I took a bath and dressed for work.  Then I went to the landlady's house at the top of the hill that the cottage was located on.  I told Leona about the wasps and she promised that she would call an exterminator right away and get the wasps taken care of.

 

Well early that afternoon Leona called me at work and told me that she had called every exterminator in Petaluma and they were all booked up with similar calls from all over town from others that had wasps invading their homes and that they wouldn’t be able to come out to my house for a couple of days.  They told Leona that I could get a can of Black Flag or Raid Flying insect killer and spray it up into the  attic and that should get rid of the wasps.

 

So on my way home that evening  got a can of insecticide and opened the trap door in the ceiling to the attic and sprayed the entire can of insecticide up there and crossed my fingers.  Luckily this was the end of the attack of the wasps!

 

Apparently, when there are several days of extreme heat if there are any wasp nests in an attic the wasps will attempt to get out of the extremely hot attic to escape the heat and since there was a hole large enough for them to get through the bedroom ceiling thats where they migrated to.

 

It’s a good thing that I wasn’t allergic to wasp's, it could've turned out pretty bad.

 

Eddie

[this post was last edited: 9/8/2024-20:31]
 
As we all know, wasps, hornets and yellow jackets are particularly aggressive and persistent. Around these parts, once we get to the middle of August, our beaches get inundated with yellow jackets. And it gets worse through September and the warmer days of October, you can't even bring a bottle of water to the beach without getting swarmed, let alone anything to eat. And eating at outdoor restaurants is almost impossible unless you like to spend your entire meal swatting at insects. Last summer, a few friends insisted on eating outdoors at a Mexican restaurant and I lasted about 25 minutes. Of course they all ordered sweet cocktails so before any food even arrived, we were under attack. Since they refused to go indoors even after one of them got stung and another fished 4 of the pests from his drink, I just gave up and went home.
We also have to be very careful at this time of year of walking in our yards because of the ground nests - usually you don't see them until it's too late. If you ever go on YouTube and look at the Hornet King's videos, it's amazing how big some of those ground nests can be. I know a lot of folks just buy a can of spray and try to do it themselves, but I leave this to the pros. Recently a friend's 98 year old mother got stung several times in her house. Apparently hornets got into a space in the siding, got into the walls, chewed their way through the wallboard and were coming into the house - and it was during a few really hot weeks here. Her son in law tried to eliminate them with a spray can from outside but the nest inside the walls was so big it did nothing at all. Finally they got the exterminator in and he's still complaining about the cost.
 
Here’s the one I eliminated. It’s a pretty good size for around here. Because it was in the control panel it’s long and narrow. It’s 2-3 inches wide and 8 inches long.

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Reply #5

Eddie, that story seriously gives me the heebie-jeebies. I am absolutely petrified of bees, wasps, and all other flying, stinging insects, have been ever since I was a little kid and it never got any better. Sometimes, there are a few of them around the trash cans at bus stops here in Indy and I have a really hard time waiting even a few minutes for a bus at that location, my fight-or-flight response is kicked in the whole time and I swear they can smell how afraid I am. I think because I can't see them, the low buzz of them flying around and the fact that it sounds like it is coming from everywhere really freaks me out. I can't imagine the state of trauma I would be in if I woke up and there was a literal swarm of them right above my GD bed! I keep picturing the scene in my head and get literal cold chills, so you have my total sympathy. It probably would have taken me years, no joke, to recover from that situation mentally. Just, yikes. I can't even!

Ryne
 
Re:#6 and 8

Angus,

We had a ground nest of wasps behind our house about 10 years ago.  I tried everything that I read online to get rid of them, like spraying and entire can of Raid Flying Insect spray in the hole and then I tried pouring a whole gallon of ammonia in the hole with no success.  Then I called Animal Control to se what they suggested.  They advised me to call Sonoma Marin Mosquito Abatement and Control, a service that every property owner in Sonoma and Marin Counties pays for annually with an assessment on our property tax bills.  They came right out the next day at no charge and eradicated the wasp nest for good.

 

Ryne,

I was scared but not to the point of being paralyzed because I had never really been terribly afraid of bees or wasps.  When I was 5 years old  I used to catch bees and wasps in an empty Best Foods Mayonnaise jar that I’d placed grass in the bottom of and punched holes in the lid.  I’d take the jar back to my bedroom and watch the bees/wasps for a day or two and then release them back outside.  But I’ll tell you what, I’d certainly not like to go through the experience of waking up to a bed covered in wasps again.

 

 Thirty five years ago at the condo HOA that we lived in before we moved to our current home one of the homeowners had an experience like Angus described in post #6 where wasps had gotten into the walls and built a massive  nest that eventually collapsed through the sheetrock into their living room.  It was a costly repair for the HOA and a terrible experience  for the homeowner.

 

Eddie
 
A couple of years ago I was buying some fries at a local food truck down by the river and I noticed they had hanging bottle wasp traps placed on it and around the perimeter. They were buzzing with yellow jackets and getting quite filled. I asked the woman what the liquid was and she told me it was Root Beer (not diet) and it seemed to be the best thing they'd tried and it certainly looked to be successful in capturing them. I bought one but didn't have to use it this year. All you need is a jar with some small holes poked thru the lid, they go in and drown.
 
Just the other day I took down a hornet nest. I would have left it alone but it was so close to my front door I wanted it gone.

I waited til after dark, made a kind of trap out of a plastic water jug, covered myself from head to toe, goggles and all, poured some gasoline in the jug, slipped it over the nest and held it there for 3 or 4 minutes. The fumes knocked them out and a lot of them fell into the gasoline. Then I knocked the nest down and destroyed it.

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It was probably a nest of yellow jackets. That's their usual nesting place. Honeybees (even the killer variety) don't make nests in the ground, at least around here...
 
I'm allergic to them and hate the things. Last summer I ended up with a basketball sized nest of yellow jackets up in a tree behind the garage, they were super territorial and chased me inside a couple times. Couldn't see the nest until the leaves fell. This summer no large nests that I've seen, but I had a small wasp nest growing under the eave between my breezeway and garage a few weeks ago. I sprayed it with some wasp/hornet killer and the next morning they were gone.. Nest and all. I assume some kind of animal (probably a raccoon) took it. I haven't been in 2 of my sheds all summer, I'm afraid to at this point. Assuming they have taken over at least one of them. I won't argue. They can have it 😅😂
 
Hate them!

A yellow jacket was bothering me at work yesterday. It landed on the garland I was working on, then tried to sting me. It was almost lunch time, so I went to the break room. When I returned, it had gone away. The warehouse has big overhead doors that are open when it is warm weather, so just about anything can come in.

After getting stung 12-14 times when mowing on Labor Day of 2022, I avoid them if at all possible. There's a nest in my backyard, so I've not mowed there for a couple months.
 
about a day after i knocked out the wasp nest in the bulldozer,about 10 wasps returned to the area the nest had been,but were not very aggressive so left them alone as i completed the water pump replacement.Yellow jackets love Friskies cat food and swarm around the bowls if cats leave a little behind-wasps show little interest in the cat food.
 

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