# I pit yellow jackets! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 7, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798 "2014-09-07T22:01:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/21 "2014-09-08T12:41:57Z")
I have several wasps’ nests around my woodshop. I leave them be for the most part. It’s in a location where little children are around. Woodshops are generally hazardous particularly to children … … [wolfish grin] … … so anything that helps chasing them off is a good thing. They don’t bother me at all, never been stung. I do get complaints from the neighborhood’s parent-types about three or four times a year. Phaw, fuck them, keep your snot-nose little bastards away from my stuff and you won’t have a problem. I just remind them that we’re allow in our community to keep skunks as pets, maybe wasps aren’t so bad after all. For the record, wasps hibernate over the winter, best to kill them now or they will be back next spring. Place a four foot by four foot piece of _metal_ window screen over the ground nest, block it down and starve the little babies to death. It’s cruel and inhumane and I hope aphids destroy your roses. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/22 "2014-09-08T13:08:39Z")
Plant sprayer bottle. Small amount of dish soap in the water. Knocks them down and gums them up. They can’t fly or breath, or warn their friends of danger. Many years ago in my old house, I had a basketball sized wasp nest 30’ up a tree where I couldn’t get to it. Over the course of a week or so, I killed over 300 wasps simply by walking around my backyard with the spray bottle, spraying them out of the air and then stepping on them. Got 60 or so at a time and never got stung. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/23 "2014-09-08T13:10:11Z")
> [@Miss\_Violaceous](#): > > I’m all on board with this. We have a large and wild piece of property and our mowers quit on us due to a yellow jacket nest. But two different companies quoted us nine! hundred! dollars! to treat it, one of them saying “…but seriously it’s not worth doing now, just wait for winter.” > > So the grass is growing. And growing. And growing. winter will get that too. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/24 "2014-09-08T13:35:29Z")
Yellow jacket? The tan suit was bad enough; a yellow jacket is clearly an impeachable offense! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/25 "2014-09-08T15:27:09Z")
Got to watch out if you’ve been the victim of multiple wasp stings - in my experience and that of others, this marks you as a wasp enemy for weeks (and can’t be washed off - I think it might even be systemic) - I found other wasps sought me out and attacked me without any provocation after just such an incident. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/26 "2014-09-08T15:43:16Z")
There are a lot of videos on Youtube of people placing glass bowls over yellowjacket nests. Apparently if you cover the hole with dirt they’ll make a new opening, but if they can see daylight through the original opening they’ll keep trying to escape from that one. You could probably starve a nest out if you went out at night and sealed a glass bowl over the opening, or the greenhouse effect in the bowl the next day would heat stress the bastards to death. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/27 "2014-09-08T15:50:18Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Also, I guess this isn’t about the Georgia Tech football team. > > Anyway, here’s [a handy chart](http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/bees_c0e8b6_1493662.jpg) on how to tell the difference. I knew someone was going to post this. Here’s another [dandy chart](http://mycitybees.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/wasp-just-an-asshole-smaller.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/28 "2014-09-08T18:14:00Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Also, I guess this isn’t about the Georgia Tech football team. > > Anyway, here’s [a handy chart](http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/bees_c0e8b6_1493662.jpg) on how to tell the difference. No, but as a Georgia alum, I would support such a pitting. Frankly, I can live with yellow jackets. It’s the fucking mosquitoes than I want to see die. Painfully. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/29 "2014-09-08T18:15:39Z")
I got stung by a yellow jacket on Monday on my lip because it got inside my beer bottle. F-ing bastard. Fortunately it was a minor sting and my lip didn’t swell up too much. I think I’m like a snake charmer, I’ve been stung so many times that they don’t bug me any more. I ended up spitting it out pretty quickly and stomping it real good. After I told my daughter, she replied “Oh no, is the bee ok?” ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/30 "2014-09-08T18:41:23Z")
On vacation about a month ago my wife got stung four times and had an allergic reaction. We almost took her to the ER. When we got home we got her a prescription for an epi pen. The next day we found a yellow jacket nest under our front step. I told her I was honored to defend the lives of my family from the black and yellow winged death. Once darkness fell, in jeans in a jacket of my own I armed myself with a can of long distance YJ spray for nests and a can of misting spray that kills on contact. The nest was quiet. Too quiet. I open fire on the hole where the nest was, spraying into the crack between our front step and the foundation of our house. After a few seconds a yellow jacket tried to escape. I had been expecting this, and switched to the mist, knocking her out of the air. I cackled with mad glee. I misted over the entry to the nest, in case more tried to come out. Choke on that _Vespula_! I switched back to the nest killer, a prayer of death on my lips. More tried to make a break for safety, but couldn’t fly once they hit the mist. I must have lapsed into a frenzied rage, because the next thing I knew the can was sputtering empty and there were a dozen dead jackets around me. I picked off one last survivor with the mist, waited another minute to make sure I wasn’t being followed, and went inside to wash off the bug spray and death. I hate yellow jackets That was two week and two cans of spray ago. Occasionally we see more around the hole. We’ve sprayed more, covered it with mulch, and set multiple yellow jacket traps. Their numbers have significantly dropped since the second major offensive on 9/4. I _think_ they’re finally all dead. I hate yellow jackets ---
**Author:** ![Club\_33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@Club\_33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Club_33)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/31 "2014-09-08T19:12:37Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Do these guys have a limited range? I don’t think we have 'em in southern California. We do in San Diego. I know that from firsthand experience. One crawled into my shirt a couple of weeks ago and got me right in the center of the back while I was driving down a busy road. I pulled over, jumped out of the car, and it was sitting there right in the middle of the seat, little bastard. Hate those fucking things. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/32 "2014-09-08T19:36:24Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > There are a lot of videos on Youtube of people placing glass bowls over yellowjacket nests. Apparently if you cover the hole with dirt they’ll make a new opening, but if they can see daylight through the original opening they’ll keep trying to escape from that one. You could probably starve a nest out if you went out at night and sealed a glass bowl over the opening, or the greenhouse effect in the bowl the next day would heat stress the bastards to death. Or this: [http://woodgears.ca/misc/wasp\_sucker.html](http://woodgears.ca/misc/wasp_sucker.html) ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/33 "2014-09-09T20:43:03Z")
> [@ticker](#): > > Get yourself a bear. Bears will scoop up a wasp’s nest and eat it whole. Bears are hard. Can’t wait for the guy living next doors Pit rant about his neighbors goddamn bear. Then **ticker** will reply to get himself a lion and the lion will eat the bear. Then another neighbor will Pit about the lion. So \*\*ticker \*\*will advised to get an elephant to take care of the bear. Then another guy will rant about the wild kingdom show going on on his block. **Ticker** will advise to import some wasps to sting the elephant to death. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/34 "2014-09-10T12:44:06Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Can’t wait for the guy living next doors Pit rant about his neighbors goddamn bear. > > Then **ticker** will reply to get himself a lion and the lion will eat the bear. > > Then another neighbor will Pit about the lion. > > So \*\*ticker \*\*will advised to get an elephant to take care of the bear. > > Then another guy will rant about the wild kingdom show going on on his block. **Ticker** will advise to import some wasps to sting the elephant to death. > > 😉 You don’t happen to live in [Zanesville, Ohio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskingum_County_Animal_Farm) do you? That happens all the time there. ---
**Author:** ![Lydia\_Phalfav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@Lydia\_Phalfav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lydia_Phalfav)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/35 "2014-09-11T16:06:34Z")
Just make a [simple yellow jacket trap](http://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/diy-yellow-jacket-trap.htm) (or 3). ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/36 "2014-09-11T23:19:37Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Do these guys have a limited range? I don’t think we have 'em in southern California. Anyway, I’ve never seen 'em or been zapped by one. You have them, all right. This is a good time to have a steak barbecue and find out just how many you have. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/37 "2014-09-12T03:11:47Z")
> [@Club\_33](#): > > We do in San Diego. I know that from firsthand experience. One crawled into my shirt a couple of weeks ago and got me right in the center of the back while I was driving down a busy road. I pulled over, jumped out of the car, and it was sitting there right in the middle of the seat, little bastard. > > Hate those fucking things. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > You have them, all right. This is a good time to have a steak barbecue and find out just how many you have. Lorda mercy. I’ve just been lucky or something. I’ve seen those big enormous [black-and-orange “tarantula wasps” or “tarantula hawks,”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_hawk#mediaviewer/File:Pepsis_formosa02.jpg) which are scary as the xenomorphs from Alien, but I’ve never seen a yellowjacket. I once saw a group of red-striped bees, happily hollowing out the carcass of a freshly-dead bunny rabbit. But only the once. Anyway, this thread has taught me what to do when and if I do encounter the bums! ---
**Author:** ![ILikeForeignLanguages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bc8723/32.png) [@ILikeForeignLanguages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ILikeForeignLanguages)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/38 "2014-09-13T00:59:56Z")
Yellow jacks are friends, not food. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/39 "2014-09-14T13:55:51Z")
> [@desertmonk](#): > > Specifically, the little fuckers that just attacked me while I was mowing. I have a dozen or more stings all over my body ☹ The Buddhist in me that won’t kill random spiders is about to go to war; when I saw the hive I figured I’d board over it come winter…but now it is death for the bees! It has been a week. Did the itching come back? I raked open a nest in July and exactly a week later it was if I had found another batch… ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798/40 "2014-09-15T12:38:06Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > Yellow jacks are friends, not food. You have been deceived by wasp propaganda. _Bees_ are friends and play an important role in the ecosystem by pollinating plants and producing yummy honey. Yellow jackets kill other bugs. I have a flyswatter that does that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-yellow-jackets/697798.md?page=3)