I made an unpleasant discovery while mowing the lawn tonight…
There’s an underground yellow jacket nest under one of the tree stump roots in the lawn, got stung twice, thankfully the wasps were small, half the size of an adult YJ, but they were definitely Yellowjackets…
…they die, TONIGHT!
And in my classic “overkill” technique, I’m overthinking things as usual…
Sure,I could just grab a can of permethrin wasp killer spray and saturate the nest, but it’s underground and the spray may not get the entire nest…
So, I’ve got the following wasp destruction gear;
A 5 gallon bucket of water (safety first)
A can of FFg black powder
An Estes model rocket igniter
An Estes model rocket launch control
A concrete paver brick…
Step 1, wait until dark, and pour black powder in the nest hole
Step 2, place Estes igniter in the hole, touching the charge
Step 3, connect the launch controller leads
Step 4, cover the hole with the brick…
Step 5; have the water brigade ready
Step 6; insert launch key in controller, count down from 5
Step 7; BOOM! No more wasp nest!
Why not do this in the daytime instead? It’s easier for you to see what you’re doing, and you certainly don’t want to overlook something whenever there are explosives involved.
Didn’t get to it tonight, I have to think this through logically, Maine is in the midst of a small drought, so explosives may not be the thing when there’s dry grass around, I do believe that black powder would be the most effective solution, especially when confined, it generally burns too quickly to set flammable so like grass alight.
You can take a portion of black powder and put it on a piece of copy paper, light it, and it’ll typically just leave a sooty scorch mark, it won’t burn the paper…
Come to think of it, BP might actually burn too fast to affect the nest, maybe some slower burning smokeless propellant like Winchester 231 pistol powder, it’s slower than BP. But faster than some large rifle powders…
Well, I’m not the maniac in charge here, but the buggers are cold blooded. If you’re going to kill them without the security of delivering death from 20 feet away, it’s best to wait until they’re too cold to retaliate immediately. Even when you’ve got a 20 foot range, it’s best to do when they’re sleepy.
Hmmm. Insects often have a pretty tenacious ability to recover from asphyxiation. The first study I can find on it seems to imply that having carbon dioxide around speeds their recovery. MacTech, just leave the gasoline out of it.
Just a minor point - wasps don’t work that way. They grow as a larva until full size, then pupate and emerge as a fully adult wasp, at which point they don’t grow any larger. If they were wasp-shaped rather than grub-shaped, they were fully adult wasps. If they are all about half the size of a normal yellowjacket wasp, then they aren’t the same species, but are some other kind of social wasp.
I would stick with a can of bee/wasp killer and avoid the explosives, as satisfying as that solution might be. I would hate for the OP to be a featured player in the upcoming Darwin Awards for 2016.
I am reminded of a story Michael Pollan told, of attempting to exterminate a groundhog by pouring gasoline down its hole and lighting a match. There was a major ignition, but since the oxygen supply was above ground, the flames came roaring out of the hole and nearly set him on fire.
I rather like Yellowjackets. I see them as allies in my battle against bugs that eat my desirable plants. In my experience they get used to me and I get used to them and we get along fine. We mostly ignore each other.
Of course, I don’t have a lawn to mow. If I did and that caused an attack, they’d have to go.
I got into 2 separate yellow jacket zones last year - one in the back yard, and one out front. Two of the evil critters flew up under my rather loose t-shirt and attacked me repeatedly. several others got my arms and legs.
We got a can of spray and one evening when it had cooled a bit, my husband went out and emptied half the can of poison down the hole in the front of the house. That was the end of that, except for dumping some dirt down the hole a few days later.
We went in search of the nest out back, but it was gone - I wonder if they had just relocated out front, since I came across that one several weeks later? In any case, we are currently yellow-jacket-free. Nasty little bastards…
Well, just off the top of my head, fragments of the brick go flying through the air, breaking windows and leaving marks significantly more painful than yellow jacket stings.
Just get some boiling water and dump it down the hole and forget the pyrotechnics.
All you have to do pour about a cup of gasoline in the hole. No ignition necessary. Do it after dark when they’ve returned to the nest and they’re less active.
