Last year yellow jacket looking wasps nested in my Hosui. I hit the nest with a stick while i sprayed spinosad and luckily they didnt attack or come back.
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I try to leave bald face hornets alone because they are beneficial. They eat tons of common house flies. Similar thing with red wasps - which down here are often yellow, orange, or dark brown.
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I just don’t want to get stung while picking fruit. Generally i leave wasp nests alone. One year most of my raspberries were pollinated by bald faced hornets
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Clark,
I have a Summercrisp pear that will not grow. I didn’t overprune, it has a nice structure, all its pear neighbors are growing well with the same soil and fertilization and drip irrigation schedule. It’s growing even less now than years before. I pruned some tips a month back to see if I could stimulate growth and got maybe an inch out of the TWO actively growing branches (on a 7 foot, 4 year old tree) Is this an indication of a virus infected tree? It came from a nursery but I suppose that’s no guarantee.
Thanks and cheers!
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Soil problems are the most likely issue. Have you checked pH? micronutrients?
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I have gotten more impressed with wasp over several years watching them go to my pear blooms when the temperature was a little low for other insects to be out. With that said I do get rid of their nest near my doorways. My method for removal is a 1 quart spray bottle of water with a little dawn mixed in (about 1 teaspoons dawn). Spray the nest after its dark outside when they are all on the nest. It might take a few minutes for them to die.
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I have never thought about hornets pollinating anything. Good to know as we fruit growers are always looking for help with getting a good fruit set.
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My only issue with hornets is that they are temperamental. My experience with other wasps is if you’re not messing directly with their nest or accidentally mash one they don’t use the stinger on you. Hornets appear to protect a much larger area near their nest and if the nest is disturbed in any way you would be better served to just leave for a little while. It might be just me but the hornet sting hurts me a lot more than wasp.
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Yeah hornets (including Yellowjackets) are much worse than wasps. They can be aggressive and they often nest in the ground or near entryways which is why I don’t love them. I’ve never been stung by either so can’t comment on the severity of their sting. My dogs also like to chomp on any flying insect that’s nearby, including hornets and bees. Luckily they haven’t been stung.
But they definitely do help with pollination so I don’t get too upset unless there’s a ton right by the house
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Embarrassed to say I just realized that this large tree on my block is a pear. Asian pear? I think? A bit concerned since it’s maybe 300’ from my house and clearly has had a lot of fireblight. Here I thought there were a new fireblight vectors anywhere in the near vicinity it’s at a house that is one of the old houses on my block with a largely neglected, overgrown, invasive yard
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Yeah I need to do a soil test but have been procrastinating. Just weird that others less than 20 ft away are good
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Funny you say that because I had trouble out of that same pear. It never grew well and I do suspect a virus or similar problem. I will try again when someone has a healthy one. I grafted it over to Duchess D’ Angoulme and forgot about it. The rootstock tree did great pushing Duchess D’ angoulme to 30’ on the same tree that acted so weak . Some trees are slow growers in general like Tyson or seckle. Summercrisp in my experience is different it acts sick. I have a similar problem growing comice it does not like it here.
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I cannot tell from the pics what kind of fruit, but I see the fireblight! And they have some lovely invasive bamboo too!
I just found a bunch of fireblight strikes on a large landscape pear not too far from my pear trees. I didn’t realize it was probably acting as a source of fireblight to my trees. Haven’t gotten round to cutting it down though.
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Interesting, thanks. This one has definitely made it into the graft candidate watch list 
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I have two trees of Summercrisp, one on ‘97 and one on ‘333. both are of average vigor, matching growth of other pear on those root stocks. Neither has bloomed, I grafted them in 2018. I did graft one to quince as well and that graft failed (Summerblood on quince grafted well and has more vigor on quice than I expected). My Summercrisp seem healthy, but no bloom or fruit to confirm it’s the correct variety. I think most of my pear scion came from Maple Valley. If you want scion, remind me next spring.
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Both pear trees stripped clean by squirrels(I think although the fruit disappears without a trace that sounds more like raccoons, right?) suffering in our drought. First time this has ever happened. Rats!
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Here I am complaining of near daily rain. I can’t weed the garden and barely can get in it to harvest things that are ripening.
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Wow that’s a long time without blooming. Mine bloomed a little it’s second year but hasn’t since.
