Problem here too. I worry every time I get my ride on mower out. So many voids in the ground where the yellow jackets can be in. Got over 30 stings once.🫣 Good thing I was not allergic. I found the hole and waited until dark. Dumped about 2 gallons of gas down the hole and then let it ferment a bit before I lit it off. I swear my yard lifted up about two feet and the hole looked like a Roman candle. Oddly no more yellow jackets after that.

 

Brings a whole different meaning to "crash and burn."

 

Had a big yellow jacket nest year before last under my railroad ties that had hollowed out over the years. I got my termite guy to spray the area. Something dug out the nests and ate all the larvae. Possum maybe or skunk.

I replaced the railroad ties with ground contact 6X6 treated lumber, not a sign of them so far. I keep cans of long range wasp killer in my garage for the wasps that make nests on the house.

Yellow jackets can be deadly, my wife was stung 14 times some years ago. Gave her a Benadryl and she was fine. The nest was bigger than a basketball under one of our japanese andromedas. We dug all of them up, the open root system is evidently a favorite for yellow jackets.

 

Yellowjackets attack in mass,they gang up on you.

 

""ONLY"", two nests so far this year. (Yellow Jackets)

 

No wasps etc but plagued by Deer Flies

 

They were a huge problem here last year. We got a break this year. The lantern flys are getting worse though

 

For whatever reason, they haven't been as bad this year. A couple of wasp nests at the barn. So far, no yellow jackets. I hope I don't jinx myself. I like burning them out. It is satisfying to watch them burn. When I can't burn them out, I have to resort to other methods.

 

not too much trouble with wasps this year , except in the bait hive i built for honeybees. took a look one day last week they started coming out one of the entrances . dont want to use poison. will probably close them in and let them starve.

 

Where do you guys live who have such a serious wasp and yellow jacket problem. I am in the Lehigh Valley (far eastern PA), and they are only a minor issue here, and some years perhaps slightly worse.

Doug

 

I am in the Lehigh Valley (far eastern PA), and they are only a minor issue here

I was born and raised in the LV (go Kids!), but have now officially lived most of my life in the south. We lived out in the county (at least it was county back then ) and I do recall one yellowjacket nest when I was a kid, but aside from that, I don't recall them (or other stinging, biting, boring, itchy, venomous critters) being all that much of an issue. Here in NC, though, I keep my eyes open. Maybe they like the warmer weather? I nearly walked on top of an agitated yellowjacket nest just the other day. An early morning Dawn bath takes care of them. Too bad it's not as easy to get rid of copperheads.

 

Not much of a problem at my house so far but our gun club has had issues with hornets making nests in the skeet and trap houses. I just bought the 3rd can of spray this year for the club. One shooter got stung loading one of the skeet machines. i try to nip them in the bud but I noticed one larger nest in a skeet house that other shooters typically load. I killed them last Sat.

 

Couple small starter nests and killed em all.
Dragonflies will catch and eat wasps n hornets but the blackbirds discovered how easy the dragons are to eat before they molt while they slowly crawl from the water up my seawall and elsewhere to shed their water world skin, thus there are hardly any dragonflies round here this year.
While out in the middle of the lake fishing a dragonfly landed on my knee and ate a bald face wasp, the whole thing! Dragons are one of my best insect friends. Next year the blackbirds will die via the pellet gun the filthy animals.

 

Gotta love those dragons. They also do a number on mosquito larvae

 

Bald face hornets. Mean dudes. They seem to like my orchard. I think they are thick as thieves with chipmunks, squirrels, and deer.

Stung me twice this year

 

When you say blackbirds, Al, there are many types of blackbirds (26 in the US). Do you mean red-wing blackbirds which frequent areas with water, or starlings, grackles, cowbirds, and of course, crows and ravens, among others. We see all of those. We get flocks (swarms, herds?) of starlings at times during the year, and when Japanse Beetles are emerging from the grass when the larvae have matured in the sod, the starlings feast on them. And we do like that! Otherwise, they can be a pest, horning in on songbirds we are trying to feed. But, yes, absolutely, dragon flies are our friend.

Doug

 

When you say blackbirds, Al, there are many types of blackbirds (26 in the US). Do you mean red-wing blackbirds which frequent areas with water, or starlings, grackles, cowbirds.

Doug

Yes.

 

Red wasps, Hornets, and Honey Bees seem to really love my fig trees. I still go out and pick figs and try not to grab figs with wasps. I seem to have a way with insects though. I have grabbed a couple and they just fly off when I open my hand.

 

Have a nice hornet nest in the Maple tree out by the road. Mowed under it when it was the size of a soft ball.They were flying around me but didnt land.Once I say what they were I got the heck away and havent mowed that part of the yard since, Nest is now the size of a basket ball.

 

Lots of hornets at the cottage this year.
Whiteshell in Manitoba

 

2 yellow jacket nests in the yard this year. Found them raking leaves. Hose end sprayer with tobacco tea and dish soap killed the nests pretty much immediately.

 

Tobacco Tea ???

 

Timely thread for me -- I was riding my mountain bike yesterday and got stung big-time. No idea what it was. I was going downhill pretty fast through a field, and something whacked into my chest hard. "Just a bug," I thought, but a few seconds later it began to hurt like hell, like somebody had heated a pushpin over an open flame and jabbed it into my chest.

I was still a few miles from home, and I didn't investigate further until I got there. No allergies, so I wasn't worried about that, but I had a big red welt with a small dark-red hole in the middle. I threw some cortisone on it, took some Benadryl and Advil, and put an ice pack on it. The pain didn't ease up for about four hours.

I've had plenty of stings in my life -- bee, hornet, wasp -- but this was by far the worst. It was a lot better today, but it's still red and sore.

 

sounds like the European hornet, thats how they feel for me,, hurt really bad, but they don't bruise or itch like yellowjacket stings.

 

A very good friend of mine, whom I knew since we were studying law together in the 90s, died from a wasp sting last year in August, the evening before his birthday.

He was riding his bike in the woods near Nuremberg, when he got a wasp sting into his belly. He suffered an anaphylactic shock. Although he was still able to call an ambulance and describe his approximate location, they arrived too late to save his life.

So, you can imagine I don't like these nasty little bastards at all.

 

This year possibly due to the heat I've noticed very few flies, the traps are almost empty, the Yellers make their nests and we have an understanding I don't disturb them and they don't disturb me. I get rid of the nests in winter.
Yea I spent 4 days in ICU due to anaphylactic shock in febuary still have not determined what hit me.

If you are allergic Please carry a couple Epipens with you at all times I carry mine in a Magazine holder.

 

get a 12 oz can of swansons chicken breast, add 1/2 teaspoon of taurus sc stir well, put it out in a wire cage to keep it away from other critters, will kill every yellowjacket nest within 1/4 mile as long as other predominate food sources are not available (apples, pears, etc.) do not use more than 1/2 teaspoon,, you want them taking it back to the nest,, once it gets there the colony will be dead in a day.

the term I use for yellow jackets is the spawn of satan. You can mow over a nest every week all summer till around the first of August, then they got an attitude all of a sudden.

 

Lots of brown hornets this year; the others about the normal amount.

 

It has been an unusual year here in East Texas. Instead of the dry spells that normally occurs sometimes in June and July, rain had been abundant right on up until the present. I have seen more birds and a greater variety than I have seen in many, many years. Glad to see them but they have decimated my garden. Back about a month ago I could see that we had a bumper crop of wild muscadines (make excellent jelly) but they have virtually disappeared as the birds work on them.

As to the stinging insects, It has been a pretty normal year with the usual wasp nests we find. Yellowjackets and bumblebees are around but not that common fortunately. Carpenter bees in my barns have had an active year as have the mud daubers.

 

Yellowjackets are oddly in short supply this year in my neck of the Front Range. Paper wasps, however, are having a banner year. The buggers nest in bird houses, gutters, eaves, patio umbrellas, folding sawhorses, anywhere there's an opening big enough to get in. Can't bait the darn things like you can yellowjackets, so it's go out after dark with a flashlight and long range wasp spray.

 

dish soap and water in a spray bottle kills them just as well and is cheaper. If you have a large nest and happen to have a car wash foaming attachment for a pressure washer, put dish soap in it and it will wreck havok on a nest. o and my bro in law takes a small bucket or large bowl, water and dish soap in it and drenches a nest. They all drop in seconds. then its stomping time JIC. (just in case)

 

WD-40 will knock all the above mentioned pests out of the air or off a nest, like turning off their lights.

 

I make a spray bottle of dawn dish soap and water to keep in my truck. Multipurpose product for spraying those little exposed type of wasp nests with wasps on em, and to wash my hands when needed. Dish soap spray kills em by suffocation. A ‘meat board’ over a container of soapy water will kill a lot of em fast. They just started to be a problem in our area in the last couple of weeks…..

 

I like it. A sorta clean kill. And no mess afterwards.

Doug

 

Lower population than normal this year in eastern WA State.