Yellow Jacket Death Help

General Questions
#1

We live in a rural area and have dealt with yellow jackets (aka ground wasps) for decades. This year we are faced with the biggest most intractable nest we’ve ever encountered. We’ve sprayed a full can of wasp death into it three times (at dusk) and there are still plenty of wasps although it has diminished the population by about half. There are at least two entrances about three feet apart and it appears that the entire space between them is solid with wasps.

Luckily they don’t get really aggressive until later in the year (it’s quite close to our house), but we feel stuck.

Any techniques or tips? It’s too dry here already to try that country method of pouring in kerosene and lighting it.

#2

If spray doesn’t work and fire isn’t an option, then perhaps a shotgun blast to blow it apart and then some spray a few days later at dusk. I’d wager that the problem is that the poison isn’t really soaking into the middle of the nest to kill stuff that lives there.

#3

A strong solution of soap & water will kill most insects dead.

A plant sprayer or pump bottle might help, as will one of those gadgets to put on a hose for fertilizing a lawn.

#4

Place a large pickle jar, open end down, over each exit to the nest. They will not be able to escape and the heat will drive the need for water that they will be unable to reach, killing off the nest.

(It would seem that they would simply begin to dig a new exit out from the nest, but I have seen this effort work where they simply continued to unsuccessfully use the existing exits until they died out.)

#5

That sounds like a winner, I would go with the jar(s) Either that, or nuke it from orbit, as it is the only way to be sure.

#6

Or call an exterminator - he’ll stroll over in a protective suit and deploy poison directly into the nest using an applicator on a pole (and because he’ll be wearing protective clothing, he’ll be able to get right at the nest without having to run away).

#7

I love the shotgun idea. If shotguns are not available, try a baseball bat instead. Oh what fun!!!

#8

Shotgun has a range advantage on baseball bat.

#9

I’ll make a video for you. :rolleyes:

#10

Why do I think that “Hey guys, watch this!” will be said?

#11

If it’s in the ground, why not run the garden hose into it?

#12

Ho, ho, you are clearly a person who has never been chased a mile through brush and downed timber by hundreds of angry wasps who can sting you over and over as long as they’re alive. I am, though.

#13

Although I do not own a shotgun, I think highly of your theory.

#14

Hmm. Definitely worth a try.

#15

Because if that’s all it took, you’d see that advice everywhere. But you don’t. My guess is that’s because it just makes them wet. Which pisses them off.

While wasps can be drowned, it takes more than a water hose to do so. A few years ago I drowned some hundreds of wasps who had attacked my dog by holding her down in our fish pond for fifteen minutes. And there were still a good many live ones when she got out. (I combed them out under running water, gave her antihistamines and rushed her to the emergency vet, who saved her life. Yellow jackets aren’t a mere squick or an annoyance, they are a serious menace).

My husband just read to me from a site called pestproducts.com that otc bombs don’t work well on a really big nest because the liquid doesn’t flow very far, you need a “professional dust”. No doubt inflicted by a professional.

#16

We wanted to dig out a bush once that turned out to have a wasp nest in the roots. After getting some stings we went inside and waited until after dark. Then I tied the bush to the back bumper of the car and took off heading out into the country. After about a ten mile round trip there were no more wasps following me and we then sprayed the hole in the ground.

I’m sure that method won’t work in all cases though.

#17

Thats both pretty clever and funny. Hit the gas Martha they are gaining on us!

#18

Lancia had a similar problem last year.

#19

At my old house, there was a wasp nest the size of a basketball about 40 feet up in my large silver maple. Too high to effectively get at. There were hundreds of wasps in my yard and my neighbor’s yard.

The solution: Hunting, armed with a plant sprayer type water bottle filled with water with just a small amount of dish soap in it. You spray the wasps in the air, it gums them up and they fall to the ground. It also seems to prevent them from giving off any alarms to other wasps, which is the really important part. Then you just step on them and twist/smear, to make sure they’re either dead or mortally wounded.

Over the course of a week, I killed just over 300 wasps, which put an end to the problem. I’d go out for a half an hour or so, spray and smash 50-60, go do something else, then come back an hour or three later and do another 50-60. I did not suffer a single sting.

#20

From the former pest control tech, this is avail OTC get a few cans, on the link read down to the second page has direct instructions on how to solve this problem

http://betterplants.basf.us/products/msds-and-labels/waspfreeze-label.pdf

Better living through Chemistry

Capt Kirk