Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Wasps or Yellow jackets bad this year

I haven’t seen one skunk in AK. Now skunk weed, you can get that at the local cannabis store.

We’ve had yellow jackets bad this year. Got a new shed in May, and yellow jackets have built a nest about a foot under the floor. Go to lift the roll up door and they go crazy. I killed some last week after they got me on the knuckle really good. A few days before, they got the dog and oldest son several times each. The last two summers, we’ve had hornets build a nest on the waves of the house. Power washer was the best for that. This one this summer, no way I can go it from the ground, got to get on the roof and really don’t want hornets to chase me off a roof.

I've learned a bit about yellowjackets in the past year or so and I'm going to be much more aggressive in the future. We (my GF really) has a 6 acre hay field. I hit 4 ground nests last fall mowing it, no stings, but ... bothersome. They were kinda rough around the house as well. This spring with COVID 'n' all we changed to working from home so I spent lots of days in the home office with the blinds open .. much nicer screen saver picture than the laptop. Anyway, as it started to warm a little I would see HUGE bees go by, looked like yellowjackets but almost twice the length. I realized those are queens that have hatched out and are looking for places to nest. I got some baited jacket traps and put them out. I caught / killed a couple dozen around the house and half that many around the hay field. Now the regular smaller ones are hatching out and I'm getting a few but nothing like the numbers we saw last year. Next year I'm putting those traps out around mid-late February. I may waste a little bait but every dead queen is a hive that never happens. If the hive doesn't happen, then they won't be swarming around the deck, hay field, etc being a menace any time we're outside.

I don't know what to do about hornets yet. I haven't seen them out scouting for nesting places, I only can attack the symptom rather than the source. I'm trying though, I am definitely trying.

AIH in Eagle River had wasp spray today. 2 more nests gone!

Black bears too.

Taken out two big nests so far this year. There's another one out there somewhere.

A #10 can with a little gasoline in it and a thin sheet of aluminum took out the one in the outside Garage doorway to the loft late one cool evening. No spray available.

The other one was under a parked trailer- took two tries and a sting to the eyebrow on that one to get them all.
Hard to move fast when one has to shoot laying on the ground on ones back, spraying up, first from one sid, then next day, the other side to get the whole softball size nest.

Doorway ones were aggressive little SOB's about 1/3 inch long. The trailer ones were over twice as big, quite tolerant of nearby activity, but even they could be pushed too far....

Import a pair, they will take care of scary things...

I don't think ADFG would appreciate that too much. For the time being, I'll stick with wasp/hornet spray.

Yup skunks love eggs...

FWIW, Wasps are being looked at differently and seen at this point as on par with bees in terms of benefit to the farm and garden.

Aside from being very effective pollinators they feed their young all types of pests that harm plants in the garden and the field. This is super beneficial free pesticide treatment that has no detrimental environmental impact. Here';s some of what's on the menu:

- Grubs
- caterpillars
- aphids
- Blow fly larvae
- house fly larvae

The challenge is finding a way to live in harmony with them. If their nest is disturbed they are gonna not be friendly. If the nest is in a high traffic area this can be a challenge. We try to leave as many nests intact as we can and only remove a nest if its in a super high traffic location. Our garden really sees the benefit of this.

Additional reading and reference:

https://www.growveg.com/guides/why-wasps-are-good-for-gardeners/

https://extension.psu.edu/programs/...s-bees-and-wasps-have-their-benefits-too

Come n git them Tom found 1 more hive under front steps, cant even get near my sheds if they would not trespass would leave them alone. Very agressive this year first warning is first sting then they follow you. Lucky I am not allergic to them like others.

Agreed Tom. They are welcome to all the bugs they can get.

I still haven't removed that nest from last year, under the garage eve. They weren't hurtin' nulthin'. those n under the rocks bordering the flower garden got my wife twice before I found and eliminated it, tho.

Actually, they were much worse last year than this year, here. It was dryer. And they were more aggressive I think.

We fill several trash cans with "well water" vs softened water or colder well water, to water garden and house plants. I kept covers on them - one loosely enough that the wasps could get in. Poor fit. Every couple days last year, the entire surface of whichever can had the loose lid would be nearly covered with dozens of dead wasps. I don't know where they all came from - certainly not that lone nerf-ball sized nest still under the eaves.

Bad??

One thing for sure & two for certain, all of God's creatures follow orders every waking minute of their life. They do exactly what God created them to do.

Yep, wasps sting when disturbed, and I then kill them if it's likely to happen again, as God intended.

I guess...

I once saw a fox in ND laying on a knoll, biting at it's paw, and watched it for awhile. When it left, I rode the horse over to see what it was doing. It had trapped wasps in the ground nest with it's paw pad, and was letting them out one at a time and killing them. It had a pile of 15 or so.

I thought that interesting.

Has anyone else been seeing those "Murder hornets" up here? I've seen 2 in the last 3 days so i'm thinking there has to be a nest somewhere's in our neighborhood.

Do you mean bald-faced hornets? The murder hornets are not here... yet.

Definitely not bald faced hornets, they were 2-3" long and had yellow coloring. After looking at some pics of the Murder Hornet I don't think that's what they were either, these were long and slender.

Very likely ichnuman flies (actually wasps) and there are lots of them this year. There are many species and they are very colorful. I have seen some bright scarlet ones this year. I have seen more this year than ever. Do not kill them, they use the stinger to drill into larvae eating the inner bark of various trees and lay eggs.

Thanks for the info, glad I didn't kill the 2 I saw though it wasn't for lack of trying.

They are intimidating looking things!

DemonWP my friend.

https://www.domyown.com/demon-wp-insecticide-p-74.html