Very useful trick if you have a nest or multiple nests of yellow jackets nearby. Skip the traps, they only catch a few. This kills them all, every time. It will kill the entire nest, wherever they are, as far as they fly in from.

Fry some hamburger just enough to break it up like taco meat, leave it as raw as possible. Add powdered insect killer. Put it in a shallow pan outside somewhere the dogs and cats can't get at it.

If you have aggressive bees, they'll be on it very quickly. They'll carry off the individual chunks of meat to the nest and kill everybody.

One year I had an infestation of tens of thousands of yellow jackets. Bastids were hovering all over the ground, constant swarms from before daybreak to after dark. Guess they were feeding on an insect of some kind maybe aphids, ants, ?? Don't know. Point is, they were so thick you couldn't run to the car w/o getting chased.

I killed them all. I didn't see one or two yellow jackets a year for several years until this year, when I just had to kill a new batch. This works very well and targets the meat eating bees. Don't put up with them one more day!

Sounds effective, but not nearly as much fun as standing by the nest entrance and shooting them with a BB gun.

Fireball2,

There is another excellent way if you can get to the entrance to the nest.

Get a plastic squeeze bottle and cut the spout back a little where you can get a good puff of powder through it and load it up with Sevin dust. A plastic ketchup bottle should do, (I used an empty 90wt gear lube bottle.)

Wait until dark when the bees are inactive for the night, and squirt a generous dose of Sevin into the opening. Guaranteed there will be no bees alive in less than 24 hours.

Just make sure to shake the powder down to the spout end of the bottle before you 'squirt'.

Myron

Sounds interesting. I use 7 dust too.

I went on the warpath when I got stung while weeding. I take that very personally. The nice thing about the poisoned meat is that you don't have to know where they are or how many nests there are. The bees do all the work.

Gas in the hole with a Mandela necklace at the exit.

It's the most rewarding anyway. ...

Bucket of water and some detergent. wait until dark and pour down the hole. The detergent lets the water go through the exoskeleton and they drown. I love to listen to them screaming and crying for help.

We had the kind that build a 'paper football' in our crawl space many years ago, and the entrance was close to the entrance to the house.
I did the Sevin dust 'whoosh' trick on that one and they were gone right now !
The 'paper football' is probably still there, as I have never gone in there to get it out.

Myron

Scott,

I had a ground nest of some kind of varmint (don't think they were yellow jackets, but some kind of ground hornet.)
Waited until dark and dumped some gasoline in it.

When I opened it up the next day, there were 3 or 4 layers on top of each other in that nest.

Myron

I had a big nest about 2 years ago. Armadillos took care of it for me.

I hate armadillos.

For a nest in the ground. Wait until dark, take an old glass pop bottle fill it with gas. Pour the gas in while leaving the bottle shoved in the hole. Next morning all those pest are gone. No need for a match. The fumes get them.
Works every time.

Steve

I haven't tried this personally but I have read that some people have success using a shop vac near the entrance. Apparently the yellow jackets attack the noisy hose and get sucked inside to their deaths.

Personally, I used Sevin or Malathion for my last ground nest. Just mix 2 gallons in a 5 gallon bucket and pour it over the nest area at night.

You guys are talking about hornets. Yellow jackets build nests under the eaves of houses and such. They are pretty aggressive if you poke around on the nest, that's for sure.

We always got them all stirred up then fought them with badminton rackets.

I don't do that anymore.

You can shoot them over bait too. It doesn't take long to kill off a nest that way. I shot them over melon rinds several years ago and haven't had any since.

Nuke 'em from space. Its the only way.

No, they are discussing yellow jackets - ground nesting (mostly) very aggressive predatory wasps, primarily Vespula squamosa, Vespula maculifrons, Vespula pensylvanica, and Vespula atropilosa, though (depending upon who is doing the classification) there may be up to 17 different species very similar in behavior and appearance.

http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/eastern-yellowjacket

These bastards:

Hornets are big and live in a paper nest that looks kinda like a football, but bigger in most cases. Yellow jackets live in the ground but there is a yellow wasp that looks like them that live in paper nests under the eaves of houses and such like red wasps. Back in 2001 we ran into yellow jackets near Monticello, Arkansas that would leave their stinger in you just like a bee, and hurt like the devil. They are the bane of Surveyors and have numerous and huge colonies from the end of August and into September on into frost. The colonies keep getting bigger and are at the biggest right before being killed for the winter. Not sure how they come back in the spring but they are not much trouble then. miles

I underwent a very intensive courtship process that included ensuring my wife was not allergic or afraid of these things.

Being successful in that effort, I let my wife take care of the things, leaving me time for more time worthy endeavors...

Do any of y'all go so far as to do a control program so that you can mow, etc without running into nests?

No doubt about that.

I had to unass a setup once, and after about 300 U.S. Survey feet, still had them humping my carharts trying to sting me.

They are evil.

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!

Yep, and the size range for the various species is incredible; from roughly 1/8" to some over 5".

Startling in appearance; harmless (to humans).

I had a boxer that hated yella jackets.

When she would find a nest, she'd start digging at it and eat the yj's as they came pouring out. She'd just stand there's snapping them out if the air.

Within in a minute or so Her head would look like a basketball and you had to cram Benadryl down her throat. Got sketchy a couple times.

Damn I miss that dumb dog.

Hmmmm! Try driving an old dump hay rake pulled by a team of mules over one. miles

After 50 years I saw my first winged cow killer. Apparently those are the males.

I can typically count on seeing 1/2 dozen or so of the females taking a stroll across the yard.

Have you seen the flying cow killers? I hadn't till the other day.

You mean these?



Yep, male Eastern Velvet ant (aka "cowkiller"); Dasymutilla occidentalis. They are a parasitic wasp, not a true ant, and their stings hurt like an immortal SOB. Only the wingless females sting, though. The winged males are stingless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasymutilla_occidentalis

Here's an item we use on the back deck for fun, entertainment, and revenge. See who can get the loudest Snap, or stinkiest puff of smoke, fun for the whole family. Some of those hornets will take three or four good hits to die.



$3.00 at Harbor Freight.






btw: Thanks for the poison meat tip. I'll be trying it out.

I used a shop vac on a big nest of yellow jackets I had in my garage wall last year. There were hundreds of them. None of the poisons seemed to work on them. It was right by the side entry door so I would pretty much shield myself by cracking the door enough to get the vacuum wand out to the entry to the nest. Just be sure you spray some poison in the vacuum when your finished and stuff a rag in the hose. The little B** will crawl back out otherwise. I learned this the hard way.

Yeah, "Arse Dagger" in particular made me laugh!

John

Gasoline works, it is quick and a cup is not going to cause much pollution or damage to ground water. Any VOC will work but gasoline is the easiest to come by. Water with detergent does the same thing and is less dangerous and safer to handle.


Besides, I like to listen to them drown.

As a former beekeeper I am not a fan of seven. It works real well when used properly but a lot of folks do not use it properly. I have lost hives full of honey to seven. Ended up having to burn the hives.

"Missionary Wasp"

Soon to be "teabag wasp" it appears

Well, first things... first.

Looks like there is one "on deck" in the crack.

i hate yellow jackets! two years ago i was mowing my neighbors yard for them as the owner was in the hospital. well i didn't know there was a nest in the ground. mower went over it running loud and really getting them upset. mower went past them and then my legs were over the entrance as they came barreling out of there looking for the disturbance. i was wearing loose fitting shorts, very bad choice on my part. pricks lit me up like a dang gum pinball machine! i hate them i hate them i hate them!!!!!

My oldest boy is a yellow jacket magnet. We were in Va. last yearshooting his .243 and he was stung 3 times, in 3 different areas. His little brother or me got narry a sting.

I always used gas but the meat trick sounds like it would get'em all.

bald faced hornets

gawd do they hurt when they sting

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


a spray can of brake cleaner does well

Problem with the meat bait is they only crave meat (protein) in the spring and fall.

Middle of summer they're looking for sweets (pollen) I put a meat bait out last week,, caught two,, but my sugar water/lemon juice baits are loaded with corpses.

The upside to meat baits is that honey bees aren't meat eaters so there's little chance of doing any damage even if you do put seven on it.

Detergent and water,,,,, it works if you can get a good dose on em but a simple spritzing doesn't do very much if anything.

I'm covered up with the yellow demons this year so I'm using all of the above.

Granddad favored kerosene.

Nope, it does nothing. You have to flood them. Really only works on ground nests.

That statement reminded me of this old cartoon.

Crews have been coming back about 2-3 times per week lately stung, they are starting to get pissed about it.

Around here, the fall bees are the worst. Super aggressive. Best time to wholesale slaughter the little bastiches. Oh, my heart sings at the thought of it.

Was bowhunting elk one year near Crater Lake when there was a freak snowstorm. One day 85 degrees, the next 4" of snow. Came across a whole pile of bees on the ground that got caught outside the nest. Laughed my ass off! HAAAAAAAAAA!

Basterds.

I've been calling them the wrong name for 60 years...damn.

Me too,,, boy do I feel stupid.

At our range, we found, though they have "official bee catchers jars", a 1 liter soda bottle with the top cut off right where it joins the bottle proper, and turned upside down, and some ORANGE soda, not much , poured into the bottle, will attract yellow jackets like a magnet they seem to like the orange soda most. One day, I had a can of orange soda setting on the shooting table with the tab opened. picked it up to take a drink and when the liquid hit my tongue, felt the solid object and tried to spit it out, but not fast enough and got stung on the tongue by the bee. OUCH..

They like beer too,,,, don't ask me how I know,,, but I now have a little flat rock that fits perfectly on the mouth of a beer bottle that's lived on my patio table for several years now.

Now after reading this thread, I don't know exactly what they were, always thought it was a big yellow jacket nest on a satellite dish I was charged to repo for my employer at the time. I had nothing to get rid of them but a plastic bag, I opened it wide, ran in and snatched the whole nest in one quick move and smashed it into goo, 1 escaped I was able to kill with my ball cap.

Happened to me but it was not the brightest honeybee, taking a swig from my open can of TAB.

In ground yellow jacket nests are very common.

ATF (Automatic Transmission Fluid) seems to attract them and kill them too. In my teens I spent a summer doing concrete curb and gutter work. We'd use ATF as a release agent on the steel forms for the concrete. Whenever we left an open pan or bucket of ATF out it would invariably fill up with dead yellow jackets.

Dawn Dishwashing Liquid squirted right down the entrance to their nest (small opening where the door frame and concrete met on the front porch) wiped out most of the colony. A second application took care of the stragglers....

The sevin dosed meat sounds like a great idea.

We used to hang a chunk of meat about 1/4" above a pan of oil. They'd eat so much that when they tried to fly they'd drop into the oil before they'd develop enough lift to fly back to the hive.

I stumbled into a hive once when my brother and I were fishing along a creek. They were in a rotten log and damn what a swarm came out when I stepped on the log, my brother and I were stung 40-50 times each. Since then stings don't seem to hurt as much. I was stung by a bald faced hornet (the black and white one) last fall in my tent and it barely roused me from my sleep.