My favorite way is likely one of the most satisfying: an electric bug zapper, placed directly above the in-ground nest entrance.
You will need a camp chair, a tasty beverage, extension cords of the appropriate length, maybe some bricks and buckets, and a little patience.
Yellow jackets come and go from the nest in waves, so listen for a lull in activity and set the bug zapper directly over the hole. Hopefully you’ve already got your electrical cords connected, so grab your camp chair and your tasty beverage and sit back and enjoy the satisfying zap and crackle. When you get bored, grab a brick and place it under any connections between one cord and the next, and place an inverted bucket over top to keep any rain from tripping your GFI/AFI. Then it’s up to patience. On my bug zapper, the U shaped fluorescent bulbs don’t have to be lit in order for the coils to be energized, so leaving it plugged in for the two or so weeks that it takes to kill the yellow jackets eggs that have yet to hatch won’t even disturb the neighbors.
Sometimes there’s a special circumstance like uneven ground, being beneath an immovable object, or being somewhere away from electricity. In those cases I’ll place a sprinkle of Sevin Dust around the opening to the nest. Yellow jackets always land and then walk in to the nest, which makes sure that they are exposed to the pesticide.
Leave the hose on a few hours in their nest. Dump a load of woodchips on whoever is still alive. Spread the wood chips out in a week. A sneak attack with a 5 gallon bucket half filled with diotamaceous earth would be cheap and effective as mentioned above.
I’ve thought about gassing them with heavier-than-air CO2, but I don’t have access to a suitable tank, so I’ll stick to my usual method until there’s a circumstance so extreme that I’ll resort to my instantaneous fire ant hill treatment: muriatic acid.
Oh, and two more things: yellow jackets inject you with a pheromone that causes others to attack you, EVEN FROM OTHER NESTS. As in, I traveled miles away and happened to come near a different nest and attracted a yellow jacket attack from it a ways away from where I was standing. And this was a couple of days later.
The other one is a little bit obvious, but I figured it might be good to go ahead and state that yellow jackets hunker down pretty well after the sun goes down, so that is generally the safest time to do anything near the nest until they have been successfully eradicated.
Edit: I prefer to treat my stings with a poultice of baking soda with just enough water to moisten it. Bleach caused a weird exothermic reaction and damaged my skin, leaving thin scab-like appearances.
I didnt read the previous posts so forgive if its already been covered.
When i locate a yellow jacket nest underground, i wait until full dark. Then totally fill the hole(s)/tunnels with wasp spray. Works every time. The key is to wait for total darkness
Wait until it gets dark and use a hornet and wasp spray. Get three cans of it. Do it three nights in a row to get rid of them. You will still see some trying to come in and out of the hole even after you spray it and the vast majority of them are dead. Once they realize the hive is mainly dead they will move on. Those are some nasty, nasty creatures. I got stung about 30 stings last year when I got close to one of my fruit trees and did not see the hole they were burrowed in. You can’t get away fast enough when they attack you.
Good luck. Stay safe!!
Back the oldest car you have tail pipe up to their nest and let it run an hour if all else fails. Insects hate exhaust fumes. Maybe ductape a hose to the exhaust to deliver it directly to them.
Above ground yellowjacket nests are very similar to a bald-faced hornet’s nest, just smaller. Usually more “uniform” as well. Hornet nests tend to be more erratically shaped where the YJ ones are usually fairly teardrop shaped. Biggest one I’ve seen was about the size of a volleyball.
I was at an aunt/uncle’s house around age 10 and spotted a huge blackberry vine up towards the corner of their backyard. They advised not to go up there that there was a hornet’s nest. But oh those berries were so large and looked so inviting, I could ease along the edge and get some surely… With my younger brother and cousin in tow we started picking and eating along a chain link fence. The grass was very tall because they hadn’t mowed that area because of the nest. I took one more step which was basically right in the middle of the nest, the air turned black instantly. I suppose it’s a testament to how fast one can move at that age, I got 7 stings and they only had 1 or 2 each. The gate through the fence was closed, I suppose the adrenaline allowed us to hurdle it
Yellowjackets are fairly small, hornets as you say are probably 2X their size, then European hornets are perhaps 2X or more larger than them. Never been stung by one of those and hope I never am. My grandfather had one get him on the back and he said he at first thought someone had shot him.
yeah B.F hornets like to make their nests under eaves and such. they will attack anything making a ruckus even 50ft. away. I’ve never seen a hornet as aggressive as they are. most hornets and bees will not sting you if they are out on flowers and you brush by. B.F hornets will.
I had that happen one year. Tree was far enough from my house I left nest until winter then just fill in hole. I prefer not to kill wasps if possible as I always see them eating pest insects on my fruiting plants
Or you could just leave the yellow jackets alone. Let nature run it’s course: here is a true story: I am coordinator of our community garden and there was a nature trail running along the north side of garden. This is in San Francisco. I discovered about 3 feet off the trail a big yellow jacket nest in the ground with lots of yellow jackets flying in and out. We discussed various ways of getting rid of them. To make a long story short I was dubious of killing them since they are very beneficial to the environment you know. Then one day as I was walking by (they never attacked anyone) I noticed a beautiful bird -a summer tanager -flitting from a tree down to the nest, grabbing a yellow jacket and flying to a nearby tree. He did this repeatedly. Over the following weeks every time I went to the garden I would see the female summer tanager gorging on yellow jackets till winter set in. The yellow jackets got fewer and fewer till one day they were gone and so was the summer tanager (which is a rare bird here). This spring the yellow jackets are still missing and no trace of the bird either. I kind of miss them both.
It’s always a balance we strike between letting nature do its thing and living comfortably in it.
For me living in a suburban setting, the only place the YJ can live is in my flower and garden beds. I can’t comfortably work the garden and pull weeds for fear of disturbing the nest, wherever it is. Being allergic to them makes it worse.
I just don’t know where they are. If someone were to tell me there is a special light (like a black light) I could use after dark to find the nest, at least I’d know where to apply something to kill them before I inadvertently stir them up.
I don’t know if other places are as fortunate, but we have a local guy who collects yellow jackets and bald faced hornets to sell them for anti-venom. He comes out with a shop vac and a bee suit, vacuums them up and puts them on dry ice. He doesn’t charge for his service, but we give him a big blackberry milkshake.
I dont disagree with you if the insects are not harming us, no problem. When i was young, yellow jackets, hornets, mud dobbers, wasps, bumble bees, honeybees were all common, and mosquitos were pretty rare. Things have changed a great deal. It makes me wonder what the next chapters of life will bring. As more people move in with different ideas, i realize no one leaves much alone now. The world will someday be their world and not ours. That is until nature decides it is not their world. Feel pity for the last humans in a world full of killer bees. The old can of wasp spray will get an unexpected response as nature adapts to the new rules. People and stinging insects don’t go together. It is like living with a backyard full of rattlesnakes. People and nature frequently come in conflict with each other.
They are surely part of the ecosystem and I leave them alone if they’re not on the parts of our property where we do things daily. Unfortunately for them, I can’t risk one of my dogs or a toddler accidentally getting too close to a nest, or be forced to give them a wide berth if they’re where I need to work. I think different nests have different levels of aggression, some nests don’t care if you walk right by, practically step over them…others…any vibration including just walking a foot away will send out a bunch to help you move along faster. We have enough land that they are welcome to nest in our woods and front yard. Unfortunately there’s no way to tell the little jerks that I mean them no harm, so don’t bring out a cloud of stingers if I’m pruning nearby. Foraging ones I’ve noticed are not too violent until fall when they get kicked out of the nest. Then I just carry a can of Zevo and knock them down as needed. I may regret my statement, but I’ve never had any of the solitary wasp species bother me and love to see them in my garden. I give them a polite amount of space.
