Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Killing yellow jackets

Correct. Lots of people confuse paper wasps with yellow jackets. They look simular, but sure don't act the same.

Yellow jackets nest in the ground or a log, etc.
Best way to get them all is to put a 1/2hr. railroad flare jammed in the entrance ,( big ground nests may have 2 entrances). Get the flare in as far as possible. Cover it up with some dirt to keep all the fumes and heat inside.
Inspect in AM.
Great Fun!

I thought the same most of my life until a few years ago I got hit by the real deal. Bassturds nailed me when I turned a spot sprinkler on top a shrub by my front door.

Last saturday, I was watering a strip of asian jasmine that runs along the house next to my front door and those fkr's nailed me again...irony is next to my front door, watering and I moved in May and this is my new house.

Only got nailed once but my hand was swollen and hurt twelve hours, no comparison to red, yellow or black paper wasps.

Used to have a dog that was a damned magnet for the things. He'd find every nest within miles of where we were. We'd just let him find them, haul ass back to the house with the wasps in tow, ID the next, gas and burn them that night, then mow the next day.

The hamburger trick sounds like a very good one.

Ok, look, just for me guys, lets stop posting pics of the things.

They give me the f'n heebie jeebies.

I won't be worth a damn today.

Them bastards HURT when they sting, too, and they (like yellow jackets which are a wasp as well) can just keep on stinging.

These are "technically" a yellowjacket as well; Dolichovespula maculata; again, technically Dolichovespula spp. as there are 7-8 (again, depending upon who is doing the classification) very closely related and very similar in appearance and behavior species of "bald-faced hornets".

These f'kers:



http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/baldfaced-hornet

Their stings are extremely painful, and they attack in huge swarms...especially if you happen to bust a hole in the nest so they can get out even faster than through the normal opening.

Evil fkr's...

These are RWE's favorite, and the only true hornet in the U.S.; the introduced "European hornet":

http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/european-hornet

Vespa cabro are a BIG bastards; 1" to 1.5" in length.

A lot of folks call them for Bell's hornets.

DAMN those things f'n creep me out.

Well, if you are going to keep posting hornet porn, here's a couple home made pics:

the recycle symbol was about 1-3/4" diameter

Nastiness.

The European (Bell's) Hornet looks something like a native predatory wasp we have; the "cicada killer", Sphecious speciosus.

They are called "cicada killers" or "cicada hawks" for a reason:



They attack and sting cicadas with the sting paralyzing, but not killing, the cicada. The wasp then takes the cicada to an area where it can or has already dug a burrow, stuffs the cicada (single for a male egg; two or three for a female because the female is two to three times the size of the male) down the hole, and lays an egg on it. The egg hatches and the larva feeds on the the still living, but paralyzed, cicada until it eats it all, then it pupates underground over the winter and emerges as an adult in the spring.

They are huge (up to 2" in length), and non-aggressive to humans, being mostly solitary. Their sting is extremely painful, though, if you manage to step on one or otherwise trap it and force it to sting in defense.

European hornet.

Just FYI - they have a stinger that will be over 1/4" in length, and they pack one Hell of a wallop. Oh, and they bite like a SOB, too. If you've ever gotten nailed by a yellow jacket, just think about one that is 4 to 5 times the size and ramp up the sting and bite potential accordingly.

Sean, what's that big black bastid between 2-3" long with what looks like a 1" stinger hanging out the back? I've only seen 2-3 in my lifetime. I figured they were some kind of imported beast that came over on a boat or some such...

Having had a few run-ins with the Vespulidae over the years, I thought that there was more than a grain of truth in this "scientific drawing":



John

There are a bunch of parasitic wasps (parasitic to plants and insects) that have a huge "stinger" (actually an ovipositor - egg-layer) visible at most times. You could be seeing one of those.

Relatively thin body for the overall length and "stinger" size?

Similar in some respects to this?

LMFAO!

That's hilariously awesome!

Similar in size, but the egg layer hooked down rather than up, the body was all black, and it looked more stout, less delicate. Actually scared me, it was the meanest looking beast I've ever seen. A fella could literally have nightmares about a swarm of those!

Almost assuredly one of the many species of parasitoid wasp. That "stinger" is there to lay eggs, and unless you're a host plant or insect species, it's harmless to you. Many of those wasps are actually stingless entirely.

More like these?

You boys don't know what a WRECK means, until you've driven a small herd of spooky yearling steers over a big colony of those rotten bastids on a hot Rocky Mountain day.

GTC

That might be it. As big as a dang hummingbird!