Yellowjackets -- the wasp/hornet

I'm just a couple weeks past my yellowjacket incident, noted in the vent thread.

I thought I'd knocked them down but we found activity in the nest yesterday. Not for much longer though...

 

Chocolate,Vanilla, ....and strawberry.. Are there other flavors of dogma I have left out?

 

In Texas they are red and serious. Spectricide Pro to the rescue. The only one at Lowes that works.

 

STUFF IT, jerk.

If those really ARE yellowjacket wasps, they are dangerous and need to be eradicated.

People occasionally DIE from their stings.

 

Maybe that's a mid-west thing.

 

You've been here since '09.....
BELIEVE it!

Concur!!

Properly constructed and baited....a yellow jacket trap traps.......yellow jackets, and not bees.
The University of YouTube has deets.

Dawn is 'greener'.
Even the blue stuff.....
NOTE! It will also kill bees.....

 

you squirt dawn on a nest?

 

Good job bet that is ~1000 bees in that trap.
We also have the Yellowjacket problem this year!!!
My water traps like yours are not working for some reason.
We've been seeing a few mostly dead stragglers in the basement.

I finally found one nest and it is near our front door under a shrub.
May rope off the sidewalk until problem solved. Not stings yet.

We also have Carpenter Bees in the deck, which leads to huge Pileated Woodpeckers ripping the deck to shreds to get to the Bees. The woodpeckers are timid but wait for us to go on Vacation, then they move in to wipe out the deck...I recently ordered some wood filler from Amazon, and they suggested also getting Carpenter Bee killer. In other words Amazon's AI routine already knows why people are ordering wood filler.

 

Foaming spray gun.
There are videos in the University of YooTube but I do not wish to be insensitive.

 

This appears to be the current comprehensive review of wasps' perceived usefulness:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.12719

As with (almost?) all creatures great and small, some benefits can be detected.

At the human interface (or we might say children and dogs and chickens), wasps will be seen mostly for their troublesome activities. Not something we can work out here to the satisfaction of all.

Optional reading (well it's all optional, but some may be entertained):

https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/imb.12862

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-ento-011118-111812

 

"You're telling me she was an orchid?!"

 

I'm led again to story telling. Names of publishing scientists can be ambiguous, so now there is a strictly numerical ID system called ORCID. This seems to lead us to having Orc ID numbers (see JRR Tolkien) but I prefer to think of them as orchid ID numbers. Making us all pretty flowers.

Orchids are not totally in the clear either, as their Greek root word means testicles But I and most others in the biz have ORCID #s now.

 

Are you saying orcs can't be pretty?

 

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse. What that orchid was up to with the Thynnid wasp was a drag show! Oughtta be banned.

 

I thought wasps WERE banned.....

 

After sunset or before sunrise pour soapy water down their hole and that will kill them. Also, from what I have read they don't like the smell of thyme or mint.


5 Foolproof Ways to Repel Yellow Jackets for Good

 

Out on the patio for a cookout today, and this yellow jacket is buzzing in my face and trying to fly up my shorts

 

Cup of sacrificial beer out on the perimeter of the property often works to keep them off the people