Destroyed 5 yellow jacket nest tonight.

LifeNRA

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My Mom found 5 yellow jacket nest in her back yard today. I destroyed them tonight.
So far this year between my house, my Moms house, and my Grandmothers we have had 10 yellow jacket nest and 3 hornet nest. I have also destoyed 60 + wasp nest, mostly at my Grandmothers. She has an old chicken house beside her home that we use for a barn. 44 of the wasp nest have come from there.
I can't remember ever having so many bees before.
Is anyone else noticing an increase in your area?
I am in North Carolina.
 

CLHC

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Well, for the past couple of weeks, we're working at an elementary school and I have noticed quite a number of yellow jackets around the buildings. Most especially seen are up in the gutter area. While they don't necessarily bother me none, I just don't like the "sting" of it and I sure don't want to be startled when I'm up on the ladder! :huh:

These past 8, 9, or 10 days have been eXtremely HOT (triple digits!) here in San Jose, and I've found a number of dead yellow jackets in my garage. . .
 

TigerhawkT3

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I also have stingy bugs in my workplace. An exterior wall in the junior college I work at has a small (1" diameter) hole in it, through which I observed wasps entering and exiting. I don't know if they were wasps, actually. They had curved, segmented bodies possibly 1-1.5 inches in length, and I saw one burdened with a piece of some dark substance, possibly debris from some nest-building.

Any advice?

By the way, for individual pests (flies, mosquitos, small spiders, etc.) I found an extremely effective and satisfying dispatching tool. It is an electric flyswatter, availalbe from an Amazon marketplace seller. Pests go KAPOW when you get them with this tool. There is the aforementioned loud pop, a bright flash, and sometimes a slight burnt smell. I've already used it several times in just a few days.
 

cyberhobo

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A couple of months ago, I had to destroy a killer bee nest. No hive, they were all clung together under an overhang. About the size of two basketballs. Got em at night when dark and there was a temp drop.
 

JohnK

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I am VERY allergic to Yellowjacket stings.

You may not know the best way to destroy the nests.

Locate the YJ nest in the ground. It's not hard to recognize them, after observing the constant in/out activity during the day.

AFTER dark, quickly pour a few ounces of Sevin dust IN the hole, and get the hell out of there. The next morning will find a completely sterile nest.

Do NOT do this during their active hours unless you like their stings.

Sevin dust is available at Lowes/Home Depot/Wal-Mart/etc.

Forget the gasoline/diesel fuel cures; they won't completely kill them all.
 

TinderBox (UK)

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my next door neighbor had wasps in his guttering.

The only poison i had was ant powder, so it squirted a bit into the hole.

load of wasps came out covered in white powder.
in the morning i looked into the guttering and their must have been 40-50 dead wasps in their.

regards.
 

smokinbasser

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We have noticed a larger than normal # of wasps/ yellow jackets here as well, as long as they stay outside and I am inside they can exist. As a mechanic we had problems with stinging insects building their nests in lift truck cabs and they would get irritated if we even jostled the spare cabs. I took brake cleaner and a bic and got a very effective flamethrower that crispyfried every wasps nest spotted, this is a chancy method and isn't recommended by OSHA if yall get my drift, but it did end the wasp invasion.
 

JohnK

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Something I have noticed:

YJ's don't forage very far from the nest. Hard to put a specific distance, but probably less than 100 yards.

If you see them hunting for insects, that nest is nearby.

Avoid using weed eaters, and lawn mowers in the vicinity. It appears as a threat to the nest, and the ENTIRE hive will respond.

Nightmare time !
 

Ras_Thavas

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Well, I got stung by a wasp for the first time this year. I'm not sure that I have noticed more nests this year, there always seem to be a lot near my house.

I did just barely escape a bad situation the other night. I noticed that the glass globe on one of the porch lights was filled with a ton of little bugs. There is a wire cage that holds the globe in place. I started to unscrew the nuts that hold the cage in place, got one off and the other one halfway when I noticed movement behind the globe. I bent down and looked at it and saw a nest about 4 inches in diameter with a bunch of wasps on it. If I would have yanked that globe off it would have hit the nest. Scared the crap out of me.

I do think I have many more dragonflys this year.
 

yuandrew

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I just sprayed one that was 18 feet directly above my front door yesterday. The spray was suppose to reach 20 feet but it still spreads out after a distance.

That aside, it seems to have worked; I looked out the window near the nest and it dosen't have any wasp on it; save maybe a few cells that are sealed and might have eggs in them. I don't have a stepladder that tall so I can't remove the nest right now.

There's another larger nest I can't reach unless I climb onto the roof above the garage but I'll take care of that one later. Two nests aren't really that bad; I remember one year, there were almost 12 of them in various locations.
 

Illum

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:lolsign:this is where a wd-40 filled super-soaker comes in handy:lolsign:

lol, jk

Im in Central Florida and we only have wasps to worry about, in 10 years of living here we only had 1 YJ nest worthy of "calling the authorities" and the nest was small...id say less than 500 bees...[nest size was about the palm of a hand facing to the side, under the overhang of the garage's side door]
 

LifeNRA

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JohnK said:
I am VERY allergic to Yellowjacket stings.

You may not know the best way to destroy the nests.

Locate the YJ nest in the ground. It's not hard to recognize them, after observing the constant in/out activity during the day.

AFTER dark, quickly pour a few ounces of Sevin dust IN the hole, and get the hell out of there. The next morning will find a completely sterile nest.

Do NOT do this during their active hours unless you like their stings.

Sevin dust is available at Lowes/Home Depot/Wal-Mart/etc.

Forget the gasoline/diesel fuel cures; they won't completely kill them all.
I will try the seven dust next time. That is a good idea. Thanks for the tip.
I do admit that I like the fires though. :D
 

BR549

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A local newspaper (Birmingham News) ran an article about huge yellow jacket nests being found in south Alabama - one completely filled the interior of an abandoned car. The folks from Auburn University estimated there were five seperate hives & queens in the car with over 70,000 bees total. They said the mild winter is to blame. I have knocked out about 7 nests so far this year - not unusual considering my rural location. The sane way is at night with poison but I will admit there is a great deal of satisfaction from a nice little firebomb.
 

Mike Painter

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cyberhobo said:
A couple of months ago, I had to destroy a killer bee nest. No hive, they were all clung together under an overhang. About the size of two basketballs. Got em at night when dark and there was a temp drop.
Swarming bees don't form nests until they find a suitable location.
How did you determine these were "killer" bees?
 
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