Wasps

[Magicman]

Yes, I put an "s" after wasp because there was more than one and also more than one sting on more than one leg. 

PatD and I are in the process of cleaning and getting the Cabin and trails ready for our annual 4th trail ride and scavenger hunt.  Yesterday I was gonna give the front porch swing a washing without knowing that there was a hidden nest underneath. 

I doubt that a video could have captured the speed of my getaway and I survived with one sting on my left calf and two on my right ankle. 

Glad that I did not break something when I leapt from the porch, through an azalea bush and onto the front lawn.  Speedy Gonzales got nothing on me. 

[GAB]

I found that carburater cleaner works good on cleaning out their little clocks.
GAB

[Magicman]

I had spray, but I had no idea that they were hiding underneath the swing. 

I went back with wasp spray after the introduction and fast departure. 

[WhitePineJunky]

Once a wasp lands on you they will keep crawling on you trying to stab you with their stinger I know this for fact   didn't matter how far I ran had to look down and slap/brush them off 

[Resonator]

I use spray adhesive on them stingy things. When their wings are sticky, they don't fly.

[TroyC]

Had some under the trailer coupler on the boat last week.

[SwampDonkey]

Pat musta wondered what lept and cleared the azalias in such haste without injury. Somehow reminds me of  a scene in a a rare Don Knots western.  Them things will put the boots to ya until you can collect yourself for revenge.

[WV Sawmiller]

  I was working on my lawn mower today and had it raised on my deer skinning rack using my ATV winch to raise the front of the mower. I keep a cable and pulley there just for that purpose. While I was replacing a rebuilt spindle and blade my wife came down with Sampson and she noticed a bunch of yellow jackets going into an upside down  bait bucket under my outdoor sink (a 5 gallon bucket with a bunch of 1/4" holes drilled into it). I looked over and found most going under the bucket on my side. Fortunately we found them before I stepped too close. I repaired the mower and came back with some Sevin dust or equivalent an dusted the entrances real well so now when they come and go they walk through it and will kill themselves and the ones in the nest. I'll check in a day or two but an sure they will be dead. I'll see if they have a hole or were building a paper nest up in the bucket.

[Southside]

Tis the season for sure.  Had a Bald Faced Hornet nest show up in just a couple of days by the mill this week.  From didn't exist to about the size of a volley ball in a few days.  That night I put on my bee suit and walked over with a can of foaming death in each hand and two spare mags in my pockets.  One defender escaped the initial strike and chose to engage, but having the second can in my dominant hand was like having a portable Phalanx and the inbound threat was shot out of the sky before it could interfere with the ongoing sortie.  Final inspection revealed that there were no survivors.  

[GAB]

One evening I saw a wasp nest hanging off of a tree branch in the back yard.  It was too high to reach without a ladder and I could not have gotten away quick enough if I'd a tried squirting it with stuff.  So I took out the remington model 1100, loaded it with skeet loads and went hunting.  After the first round there were a few floating around what little of the nest was left wondering what happened when the second round got most of them.  Problem solved.

Another time I was on a sheet of plywood on top of a coragated plastic roof on a green house painting the underside eaves of the house over the green house roof when I disturbed a nest.  There was no way for me to do a quick getaway so I started shooting at them with my 2000 psi paint gun.  Only got bit once but I got quite a few.

With the proper tools they can be neutralized.
GAB

[Old Greenhorn]

..... so I started shooting at them with my 2000 psi paint gun.  Only got bit once but I got quite a few.

With the proper tools they can be neutralized.
GAB

2000 PSI?! Holy cow, when you paint, you don't mess around GAB! I don't even know if I could move my arm fast enough to keep up with that kind of delivery!
 You don't say, but I wonder what the house looked like after the battle was over?

[Old Greenhorn]

Those paper wasp nests show up in the dangest places. Last week during the heat wave, my wife wanted me to put the little window A/C unit back in the spare bedroom for her afternoon nap time. Well apparently when we took it out last fall, the storms were not quite in the right notches and there was a crack left open which allowed the little black stinkers to get in between the panes and start a nest. It was only about 2" diameter when we found it. I waited until evening and then forgot about it, this went on for a few days until finally one night I remembered it at the right time. I had an almost empty can of spray, and cracked open the sash and turned the can upside down, pointed it at the nest and gave them a shot, but hardly anything came out, just enough the get them 'aroused'. So I closed the window and figure I needed to get a new can the next day. Turns out, that little bit was enough. The next day, there were a few dead ones and the rest were gone. 

[SwampDonkey]

A couple years ago we had white faced and yellow jackets bad. Summer was kinda dry to. Well at one spot the toe of the drain field I have a row of hardwood along. I had mowed 2 weeks before. It was time to mow again. Well I was keeping the mower under the porch, but I just happen to glance at a red oak down there. Holy molly, one huge nest, th ssize of a beach ball, was hanging off the lowest limb. I happened to have a can of wasp spray, but first I decided to bust it up with rocks at a distance with some ground elevation. Well I'd like to say I hit with one carefully placed rock. Truth is, it was more like 10 with only 2 connecting wih tthat thing. Once she was severed from that branch, I soaked that nest well and at anything with wings arising. That stuff must be powerful, as it dropped any buzzer that moved. As I said that was one miserable year for wasps.

[thecfarm]

One year my 2 brothers needed some firewood. They came here to cut it. We would drop the trees and limb them. But seem like the trees would land on a ground hornets' nest. I can't remember how many times we all got stung. 
My father was driving the tractor and would not get stung. He would tell us they are only being friendly as we took off running. 
Limbing a tree you can't hear them and the next thing you know hot needles are going into you. Seem like we knew where they was 10 nests at one time. We would pull the tree out of the danger zone. 
Once we was just standing around and along came my Father on the tractor. All at once he has that tractor wide open. Which he never does. We all thought that was odd.  Then all at once he jumps off the tractor, but shuts it off first and it's still moving!!! This is a 60 year old man doing this!!! Then we ask what is going on? he starts to swear about the hornets. We all say, they are just being friendly.

[SwampDonkey]

Friendly and hot, the worst kind of friendship.

[GAB]

..... so I started shooting at them with my 2000 psi paint gun.  Only got bit once but I got quite a few.

With the proper tools they can be neutralized.
GAB

2000 PSI?! Holy cow, when you paint, you don't mess around GAB! I don't even know if I could move my arm fast enough to keep up with that kind of delivery!
 You don't say, but I wonder what the house looked like after the battle was over?

When the battle was over I continued painting.
I just checked and the new version of the paint system I have now go up to 2800 psi.
GAB

[WV Sawmiller]

  Not the safest or most advisable but it is so satisfying to wrap a newspaper or brown grocery bag loosely around a long pole and set it on fire. stick it up under the nest with flames roaring and singe the wings off of them. Its more effective at night when they are all on/in the nest. (Besides more of the volunteer firefighters are at home during those hours if something goes awry. ) Note to self - Don't run out of tinder before you run out of wasps.

  BTW- young wasp grubs are good bream bait if you ever run out of bait on the lake and you can find a big nest to knock down.

[Southside]

Along those lines a crude, but effective, stand off shape charge can be made using a long pole, an M-80, and a couple of board scraps.  Paper nests, larva, and exo skeletons don't like overpressue, or so I have been told....

[Don P]

I was getting ready to set up scaffold on the end of the house yesterday and looked up under the ridge. Nice active hornet nest. I got the lower unit installed and waited for dusk, took out a window screen, leaned out and hung out there as long as I dared with the "shoots almost 20'" can. At dawn I checked and they were still angry... so I hit em again. and ran bravely away.
I believe I'll run wire under the house today  .

[Magicman]

All wasp sprays are not the same.  Some will instantly kill and others just make them fly off mad.  The foam stuff is no good.

[thecfarm]

I can't remember the how and why. But my father tried, note the tried word, the burning method with some ground hornets. He managed to burn the wings off some, but they still had their legs. Them hornets was crawling up his legs and they was busy protecting their home!!! They was so busy doing that my Father had to drop his pants to get rid of them. Seem like there was another person there too that saw the adventure!!!

Years ago, I had a flame thrower. That worked good on ground hornets. Run that flame wide open and have one person with a shovel to expose the nest and them critters were gone!!!!
That flame thrower would make some noise at wide open. Also burn some fuel too!!!
Worked good on starting brush pile on fire too. Had it hooked to a 20# gas tank.

[Magicman]

A cup, maybe more, of gasoline for years.  It is what we had and what we used. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I moved the bait bucket I mentioned in reply #7 and found an odd shaped nest about as big as a quart fruit jar laying on the ground. Of course I watched first to make sure there were no yellowjackets coming or going.

[Southside]

I had some nasty mean bumble bees in boxes of stored stuff last summer and sprays were not an option.  It just so happens that I have quite the supply of Co2 fire extinguishers and sticking the extinguisher wand into the box made for a nice supply of instantly frozen "Bon Bons" that the chickens loved.  It also created quite the Hollywood movie scene with the massive fog cloud rolling out of the doors. 

[SwampDonkey]

One's gotta do what you have to sometimes. I otherwise would take no pleasure killing bumble bees, but wasps are enemy number one, any place or time.