Interesting summer

[customsawyer]

A few of y'all have been to my place for sawmill projects and such. Every year I have a on going battle with wasp, hornets and what ever else wants to build a nest in the rafters of my covered porch. Well this year I have had 1 I repeat 1 hornets nest this summer. I have no idea why or what is different. If any of y'all have any knowledge as to what I did different, please let me know so I can do it again next year.

[Treeflea24]

We had a similar summer here in Ohio, but with dog ticks rather than hornets. The last few years I've kept a jar with a small permethrin dosed piece of rag, and when we find ticks on ourselves or the dogs, we add them to the jar. By late summer the bottom of the jar is usually covered.
This season I have found only 4 dog ticks. (but also two blacklegged ticks, which is new for around here).

[beenthere]

A few years back I noticed a sharp decrease in the number of wasp nests. My thoughts as to why revolve around using Ortho Home Defense spray to reduce the spider, Asian beetle, and box elder bug population. The wasps flit around and land on many surfaces and pick up the spray which does them in. 
Very noticeable drop in the wasp nests being built around the house. Does a very good job on the Asian beetles which come at the end of the soy bean season looking to get into every nook and cranny. 

[moodnacreek]

Insect populations rise and fall, even disappear only to come back stronger than before. We have more bees than I ever remember in spite of all the reports.

[YellowHammer]

I think I have everybody else wasps.  I'm covered up.  Even the neighbors are telling me that they have stopped putting out their hummingbird feeders because of the wasps and Yellowjackets sipping them. A guy last week showed me a picture of some monster hornets that looked about the size of the hummingbirds on his feeder.  I don't know what kind they were, but he kept telling me asian hornets...I don't know my hornets, except it's them or me.  My new son in law got stung 7 times the day before his wedding, but luckily it was on his leg and could be covered by a tuxedo.  We were glad he didn't get hammered in the face, that would have made some good wedding pictures.

[Roxie]

The jumbo wasp is called Eastern European Hornet. Looks like a yellow jacket on steroids. I had a nest in a gap between my siding and soffit that no amount of wasp spray could remove. Called an exterminator for the first time in my life, and he pumped 5 gallons into the wall and that worked. Then I removed from my yard the bushes and trees that attract them like birch trees, lilac bushes, etc. 

Customsawyer, come to think of it, I whacked one yellow jacket with the fly swatter this spring and haven't used the bee spray once. 

[Don P]

We battled those european hornets a few years ago. The porch light would attract them and several made it inside. We finally traced them back to the wall of a shed where they had made 2 holes in the siding. I hit the high hole and my wife hit the low one. When I went in the shed the next day there were hundreds of huge hornets laying there, very scary!

We ran into them in an old stump by the drive on one job. One sent the mason's son to the ER, and then the bite went necrotic. I don't know if that is common or not. I took the weed burner torch to that nest and didn't go back till the 20 lb cylinder was empty and the stump burned out. Not cheap but it did work.

[customsawyer]

I have seen the slight increase or decrease from year to year but never like this. I normally go through at least a case of wasp spray but this year just the one nest. Maybe they will show up here next week. :D

[YellowHammer]

I was weed eating last week on my dam and didn't notice a little hole in the ground until what was in the ground noticed the weedeater!  They (I'm not sure if it was hornets, wasps, or what, I didn't stick around) came literally boiling out and luckily for me, they attacked the weedeater and not me, which turned out good because I went one direction and the weedeater went the other!  No stings....but I still have the hole out there.  I was going to wait for a little cool snap to get them because it's going to be a live one. 

Jake, the reason you don't have any wasps out there is they like peace and quiet, and you're out there working from dawn to dusk!  Or they are scared of Chief, your new employee!

[Andries]

I'm thinking that Chief chased all of Jake's wasps further North. Really far North.
They decided the sawmill frame was their new home.
Me and my bottle of Black Flag decided they were dead wrong.



☠️☠️☠️

[Southside]

Knocked over a small, dead, Maple snag along the edge of a pasture last year and three of those giant hornets got me, and fast, their nest was in a crotch that was at the top, maybe 12' off the ground.  Talk about painful, and the area was swelled up for weeks.  I returned that night in my bee suit and marched in like a western gun fighter.  Can of death in each hand, it was a scene right out of "The Quick and The Dead", I didn't give them a chance, didn't even wait for the clock to strike noon, just hosed them and watched them die in glee.  

[K-Guy]

just hosed them and watched them die in glee.

My aren't you the murderous, sadistic Blank!!! smiley_jester

[YellowHammer]

Well, I was kind of hoping those big hornets had a bark worse than their bite.  I guess I was wrong.  It's nothing to turn on the house lights at night and see a bunch of them swarming it.  

Yellowjacket season will start in a coup,e weeks, then they will be everywhere, and in the fall they get real mean.

[doc henderson]

they all have an app on their phones, called "Wingy dingy thingy" I it helps them avoid certain death.

[Don P]

I think those Bee-52's are bee carnivores. We have, a carpenter bee or three riddling the porch beams, to the point I've quit fighting and need to saw out another. I was standing out there one early evening with the din and swarm of those guys and a european hornet slowly slides in. Unmistakable sound, they can't move that body in stealth mode. I looked around and it was just me and him, the carpenter bees fled.

[Southside]

You are correct Don, they will destroy a hive. Actually moved hives out of the field of death a couple years before because we found a wasp nest in one, alas they are still around somewhere. 

[Don P]

The "Jaws" music as he came sliding in was kind of a giveaway.

[JD Guy]

I was weed eating last week on my dam and didn't notice a little hole in the ground until what was in the ground noticed the weedeater!  They (I'm not sure if it was hornets, wasps, or what, I didn't stick around) came literally boiling out and luckily for me, they attacked the weedeater and not me, which turned out good because I went one direction and the weedeater went the other!  No stings....but I still have the hole out there.  I was going to wait for a little cool snap to get them because it's going to be a live one.

Jake, the reason you don't have any wasps out there is they like peace and quiet, and you're out there working from dawn to dusk!  Or they are scared of Chief, your new employee!

Sounds like when we "discover" a yellow jacket nest in the ground. I go back late evening or even after dark and turn a glass beer bottle full of gasoline over and stuff it in the hole. Problem solved 😁

[Wlmedley]

I've been pouring a little gas in yellow jackets nests for years to get rid of them.I used to light it but found it worked better just to pour some in the hole and leave it.This year some sort of animal has been digging the nests out of the ground saving me from getting ate up.Must be a pretty tough critter.I suspect a skunk but am not sure.Hope he keeps it up,have only got stung once this year.

[SawyerTed]

We've only had 2 yellow jackets nests this year.  No hornets or wasps that I've seen.  It is very unusual.  

While we were at the coast, a storm blew some shingles off my house.  My buddy and his wife saw them so he decided to fix them for me.  It's a steep roof and we use foam rubber cushions to stay put on the  roof.  I have a stack of cushions in a shed off my garage.  When he went to get the cushions, he found a huge nest the hard way.  I'm not sure how many times he got stung but it was a bunch.  He still came back the next day to fix the roof.  

The other nest I found today with the bush hog.  It was under my equipment trailer that hasn't been moved since May.  I moved the trailer and came back with the bush hog.  One pass and they were mad.  I left and did something else.  I'll finish after dark.  

[Ljohnsaw]

My son called me a couple weeks back when I was up the hill working asking what Yellow Jackets and wasps look like.  I had placed a folded up tarp (a BIG section of a covered horse arena - big enough to cover the cabin) near the mail box (brick column).  Last year a big limb broke off a big oak on the other side of the driveway.  I bucked it up and stacked it on the tarp.


Anyhow, he said he got the mail and noticed something flying around him and decided it was best to leave.  So I got home the next day r two and sure enough, about two dozen yellow jackets flying very angerly around.  There were two small holes in the dirt at the edge of the tarp.  Got out the shop vac and put it by the bigger one.  Very amusing sound of them getting sucked up.  When all was quiet, I'd hit the pile of log to rile them up again - and hear the tinkling of them as they bounce through the hose into the vac.  Did this for about an hour.  Then, pull the hose (with the vac running) and stuff a piece of crumpled newspaper in the inlet before shutting it off.


Probably sucked up a couple hundred the first couple days, maybe 1,000.  It all turned into a coarse black and yellow sand in the vac as they dried and were bounced around.  All quiet for a few days then another swarm and time to switch the vacuum on again.  Funny thing is there is a ground transformer right there.  About 30" cube.  In the near side is a lifting hook.  Kind of looks like a nose.  The yellow jackets really go after that.  Don't know if it looks like a face to them or what, but they really swarm all over that, looking like they are trying to sting it!


Still there...  Wondering if a brood hatches every couple days.

[doc henderson]

i got into the little what we call sweat bees.  and they hurt a bit too.  when I was a kid, we would go to the neighbors, and make mud patties, and then step on bees in the clover and press the body and wings in to the mud, to see the veining of the wings imprinted.  later as a teen i got stung and my foot Swol way up.  the doc thought i was allergic, but no further symptoms.  maybe a little sensitized.  no further systemic reaction,  to bees and wasps in later years.  

[Tom King]

When I suck up wasps with a shop vac, I make it a big kill jar, and suck in a piece of paper towel with Acetone on it.

When I find a yellow jacket nest, I upend a quart of Acetone on it after dark.  The next morning there are no more than a couple of stragglers, that didn't make it back last night, flying about wondering where everyone is.

[beenthere]

Wlmeadly

Must be a pretty tough critter.I suspect a skunk but am not sure.

That likely be a skunk. They dive right in. 

[Ljohnsaw]

Wlmeadly

Must be a pretty tough critter.I suspect a skunk but am not sure.

That likely be a skunk. They dive right in.

So today there were a few buzzing around so they got sucked up.  I just looked around and there was remnants of the nest all over the ground.  When my son came home from work last night after dark, he called and asked if a skunk has white on the tail.  Said it was hanging around the mailbox.  Guess he had a snack last night.