If you are referring to those black and white suckers, man they are a nasty crew. We use to throw stones as kids at their nests on bikes, and they must have chased for 1/2 mile, and they could almost catch a bike.
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Those bold faced buggers do pack a wallop, but I have knocked out their hives without a speedy bike and the wasps acted much like their less powerful yellow jacket sisters. Stand back and they fly around in dazed confusion has been my experience. Destroy the hive and the tree they are removed from can be pruned within an hour even though there are stragglers flying about, perhaps behaving with a bit of annoyance, but that don’t usually sting. I have to get on with the job.
Because I climb all over the kinds of trees where they make their nests during summer months, I get plenty of opportunity to observe their behavior. I think you kids may have made it more of an adventure than was the reality.
Not trying to bust your chops, but I think the solution to the problem seems harder if one believes your story in full.
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Well that was an event full night, lol. I drove up there tonight to get a bunch of stuff done, and I left it till the very last so I could plan my escape. The only parking spot is about 10 feet from one of the hives, so I had it all set up to knock one then the other with a gardening tool, throw the tool in the garden and then jump in The car and get out of there.
So I hit them both and got in the car. I couldn’t see any bees, but it’s at night. Drove home, and then realized in the confusion I’d left my battery and bilge pump running with the hose stretched across the public road. So I had to go back, park next to the hive, and run the gauntlet again to get my battery back (before it over discharged) and put the stuff away, lol.
So I got the chance to take a good look at them again, and I was shocked to see the nests still attached and they look like nothing had happened. I had to hit both of them a few more times before they came off, all the while the wasps didn’t move much or seem to care. Very weird. And lucky.
I was thinking on the drive up there it would be better to try on a rainy night. Or better yet, use the fruit safe pesticide I have which is supposed to be toxic to bees. If it’s bad for bees, I imagine it would be bad for these guys.
Anyway all done and I’m back at home now.
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That was pretty much what I was saying. They are not as bad as a lot of people try to say. I figure they do more good than any harm.
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That may be the general rule where you are, but in our region we occasionally have years where they are epidemic. They become a constant swarm anywhere you are outdoors- at least by lawns. They can take all of the fun out of a late summer picnic.
Even when they are not this bad they can become a very large fruit pest, exploiting any break in the skin of fruit and hollowing it out- destroying the fruit and stinging your hands if you grab a fruit with a wasp in it.
It is like all pest control issues, you usually wait until thresholds reach a destructive level (or just before) and do what you have to do. For wasps, I hang lots of fruit juice baited traps from fruit trees and can usually get things under control in a couple weeks.
I have a client who calls me whenever psyla populations in her pear trees get high enough to attract wasps. She is very allergic so I control the wasps by controlling the psyla there.
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Well I went up yesterday night, and found one of the nests a short distance from the tree on the ground, with all the wasps still on it business as usual. I couldn’t find the other nest.
It was raining all day today, so I went up tonight and that same nest was half covered with dirt and ants all over it. No wasps. I think the ants may have done that ’ Cover it with dirt and pebbles’ thing.
I had neglected weeding under the blueberry bush because the wasps, so was trimming when I hit the missing nest, on the ground. It’s still had wasps all over it, and they tried to attack me. I couldn’t get near the bush to harvest, so I just left it for tonight. I imagine it will get naturally cleared out soon.
So these wasps do hang around the nest even when it’s on the ground for at least a couple days.
I found a wasp nest today…mowed over it and got stung in the ankle…hot damn does that hurt. I found the hole so now i have to figure out what to do. Very close to fruit trees and they’ll be stinging pluots here in a few weeks when their diet turns to sugary goods.
Doing some reading and i’m going to take this wasp colony out. Tonite…
Found this…might be something
“Toxic baiting with fipronil has also been shown to be extremely effective in locally eliminating German wasps. All colonies within foraging range are completely eliminated within one week.[3][4][5]”
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If they are underground, not solitary, and aggressive then they are yellow jackets for sure. I used to have tons of these underground when I was in Pennsylvania. I found a cheap and easy trick for killing them: place a clear glass ( or plastic) bowl over the entrance. They won’t dig a new entrance because of the sunlight from the clear bowl and they can’t get out so they dehydrate and die by the thousands as their corpses pile up. Only two things to consider: the bowl needs a good seal all around (some soil or compost in a circle at the rim helps) and you need to make sure you get any secondary entrances they may already have.
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I love it…!! Esp after being attacked from below ground.
I used a large glass bowl and dirt…we’ll see. I didn’t have any come attack me.
Thanks for that info.
I looked at the window this morning to see a steady stream of insects flying to and from a hole in the ground between the garage and my front door. Closer inspection revealed wasps. They were probably yellow jackets.
I sprayed the hole with the last of a bottle of wasp spray I had before reading this. Not sure how I would have covered the hole with a bowl where they were, but that is a useful tip.
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2 summers ago i had one of those ####### sting me right in my face…oh my God did that hurt…it was like clinging to me…i had to pull it off. I ended up leaving that nest, but they must change locations yearly. They do a ton of damage on late pluots…Flavor King gets hammered by them.
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The yellow jackets and bold faced hornets are now hollowing out all my late blueberries. Should have set up the baited traps a couple of weeks ago- but then, I am tiring of harvesting blueberries anyway. It is the most time consuming fruit to harvest I grow- when half the fruit is hollowed by wasps it just aint worth the effort.
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At least you don’t have these to deal with. I’ve seen them a few times, and they’re very scary. I was wearing ear phones while working on my peach tree, and I didn’t hear one until it was right next to my head. I don’t wear earphones in the garden so much anymore, LOL. .
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K6m40W1s0Wc
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Holy cow, these guys are resilient. Both nests have been rebuilt, all be it smaller with fewer hornets on it. One is in the same place, and the other is higher up the tree. Pretty tiring picking blueberries on that one tonight!
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watched my grandfather knock down a huge bald faced hornet nest, pick it up and calmly walk to the campfire to throw it in! must have been bit dozens of times but he just went back to raking the lawn.
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Up by us, hornet nests rarely survive the winter. So unless it is in an especially bad spot, I just wait til a cold day in Jan and knock it down then.
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I generally let other wasps go - some are very interesting neighbors
But YJs and Bald-faced hornets are another matter. Especially YJs, when they nest where you can step on them
The hornets don’t survive the winter in the original nest - by spring it’s disintegrating.
The new queen has already moved on in the fall
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Yellow jackets destroyed my later blueberry crop, hollowing out so much of the fruit that they aren’t worth picking. They are hard to stop from doing this by trapping them out because there are always plenty of ripe blueberries so they aren’t as cooperative in flying into traps. Ripe blueberries seem more attractive than concentrated apple juice this year.
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I left the pyrex bowl over the nest for several days. All clear when i removed it. Even flooded it out good afterwards…nothing. I think the clear bowl trick works well for ground nests.
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