Yellow Jackets!

[Brian Shaffer]

Today was a learning experience, plain and simple. I am done for the day, eating Benedryl like candy, wondering what happened to one of my gloves, and just being happy that things didn't go worse and that I am not truly allergic to wasps/bees.

I had spent about 3 hours at my folks' place mowing, when I came across a large burrow (armadillo) that posed a real hazard to the tractor on which I was riding. I didn't see it in the tall grass and dropped the right front wheel down into the hole which was a really rude experience. No harm done and the tractor has a bucket and we have a pile of dirt so I decided to fill in the burrow. After the first bucket of dirt, I drove over the burrow to pack it in and realized I would need more dirt and headed back to the dirt pile. I got the second bucket of dirt and was backing away when I noticed a swarm. So I scooted forward, zoomed, got video (because it was interesting), and got the tractor turned around and was headed to dump the 2nd load of dirt when I saw the bugs swarming out of the bucket and many coming down at me and that is when the stinging started. Apparently, I had picked up the nest or part of the nest in the bucket.

I punched the accelerator to a whopping 12 mph (according to GPS) and took off through the woods, dumping the bucket as I went, thinking the yellow jackets would remain behind. They didn't. I made it out of the woods without turning over or crashing and got into the open field and then to the smoother hay field out in the wind, now a good 200 yards aways and was still getting hit. Finally, the assault seemed to stop and I decided to head back to the barn. Somewhere along the way, one got under my glove and got me in the hand and several minutes later as I was pulling up to the barn, one (a rider?) got under my mask and stung me on the face.

I found this description online that seemed to fit, but "aggressively" really does not seem to express the tenacity of these little guys at all.

Yellow jackets often nest underground in rodent burrows, so if you see lots of flying insects emerging from a hole in the ground, they're probably yellow jackets. By late summer, a colony may contain thousands of individuals that will aggressively defend their nests from intruders.

I had no idea they ground nested. I have never seen ground nests before. I have been stung by them before, but never with such intensity as they did today. I don't doubt there were thousands of them. The Youtube video gives some idea, but there are actually a lot more shown in the original video than what you can see in the Youtube video.

So if you didn't know, particularly if you are allergic, yellow jackets in late August do not take kindly to having their ground nests dug up and they have a very nasty disposition about it.

I think will have some more Benedryl...

 

[scrmblr1982cj8]

I learned that same lesson about a month ago when I was using the weed eater in my side yard. There were hundreds of the little bas*^T$%#s coming out of the ground. I put about 1/2 a gallon of gas in the hole after they calmed down, threw a match, and ran. That thing burned for a few hours. The next day, I saw more yellow jackets coming out of the hole, so I ran the garden hose down the hole and left the hose running for a few hours. That seemed to do the trick. My daughter walks within 5 feet of that spot daily, so I'm very thankful she didn't get stung on one of our walks.

 

[RattlesnakeDan]

Thanks for the entertainment and glad you didn't get kilted by them!

 

[RattlesnakeDan]

Last year I climbed up in the dark into my buddies deer blind....first one in there in a month or so. Once it got light I realized I was not alone. I was locked in with dozens of mad hornets. Tried calling my friend but he left phone in the hunting shack. Not good. Got stung a few times, legs, hands, neck... just moved really really slow and opened windows. It was also about 100 degrees in there and I was soaked with sweat. Now I use a light first.

 

[djones]

that can turn bad real fast. glad it wasn't worse!

 

[Wassman]

Dam, I have a vendetta against wasps. They got me really bad when I was a young one and ever since then I kill every one I see.

 

[cletus]

Glad u escaped with minor damage those suckers are the worst

 

[FrankT]

I hate those things, just had a paper nest with a dozen on the front patio and got them with spray before they got me! you need to get out there and kill them! Thankfully your folks were not there.

 

[Brian Shaffer]

Yes! Pop would not have done well getting stung repeatedly while on the tractor.

Killing with fire sounds like a really good idea.

I will be out tomorrow and have on more layers and see if what I can find.

 

[scrmblr1982cj8]

Last year I climbed up in the dark into my buddies deer blind....first one in there in a month or so. Once it got light I realized I was not alone. I was locked in with dozens of mad hornets. Tried calling my friend but he left phone in the hunting shack. Not good. Got stung a few times, legs, hands, neck... just moved really really slow and opened windows. It was also about 100 degrees in there and I was soaked with sweat. Now I use a light first.

Our deer season opens 9/1. I'm headed to the woods Sunday morning to get rid of all the wasp nests. I went through 6 bottles of wasp killer spray last year.

 

[Ratdog68]

Yikes !!! Glad it didn't end up being worse than it did ! Man... I really dislike those things. Last summer, found SOMETHING around my neighbor's yard that appeared to be coming up from the soil. But, they weren't yellow jackets. These were more black in color and bigger. I hosed the area with some wasp killer spray, haven't seen any more of them since. Hope you get some relief from it soon, nasty stuff.

 

[theblakester]

Sorry man. That sounds super unfun. Just to clarify, they're the yellow and black only ones. Not the yellow black and red right?

 

[Chopperdrvr]

They are also known as ground hornets because of the way they burrow. We have them quit a bit around here. A couple years ago they took over my carport by nesting in the tool box of an old Wyllis jeep I had. They were fine for a couple months then as it got into August and the temp started rising, so did their aggressiveness. I had a good idea to get rid of them. After dark, I enlisted my wife to help me take a large tarp and cover the entire jeep. Being sensitive to bee stings, she covered up pretty good including a hoodie. As we began slowly moving the tarp to cover the jeep, she screamed and dropped the tarp and ran leaving me there by myself. She said that one was trying to get into the hoodie. I told her that they won't fly at night and got her calmed down enough to go back and we were able to get the tarp into place. I then threw about four aerosol bombs under the tarp and went in for the night. The next morning I looked out the window to see hundreds of pissed off wasps flying all around my garage. During the night they had dug a trench out from under the tarp and lined it with the paper material they make the nest out of. BTW they do fly at night and they always have guards posted at the entrance. Round one went to the yellow jackets. On to the Internet for inspiration. I found out that you can cover the area around their entrance with powdered sevin dust and as they land to walk into their nest area, they will pick it up and take it into the nest and kill everyone they come in contact with. Within a few days, the whole colony should be dead. After a few days, they calmed down enough for me to do this and then I had to leave for a couple weeks for work. I figured, great, when I get home, I can have my carport back. Got home and to my surprise, not only were they not dead, they were really pissed all the time. They would fly at you even if you weren't near the carport. Round two to the yellow jacket. Back to the Internet. This time to order a bee suit. By this time we were into Sept, but still very hot. The colony is now probably at its max number of members of a couple thousand plus. This was my first time with a bee suit so I figured I would try it out on some smaller wasp nests first to see if I could handle it. Everything worked as advertised and I was able to eliminate a couple wasp nests that were too tucked away to get with spray. Did I mention that it is extremely hot in a bee suit at 90+ degrees and 90+ humidity. After battling the red wasps, I was physically and emotionally exhausted so I decided to wait until the next morning to attack the yellow jackets. Next morning at sunrise I suited up and felt like I was going into battle on a suicide mission. I was armed with a pump sprayer loaded with a strong insect poison, a hand sprayer with dawn and water mix and several cans of wasp spray. I knew that to win the war, I was going to have to get the lid of the tool box open. As I approached, I started to kill the sentries. This only alerted the rest of the collective and the humming got louder and louder. To get the lid open, I would have to lean over the side of the jeep directly above the box. It took all my will power to go in for the kill. When I opened the lid of the tool box a cloud of angry yellow jackets came out looking for someone or something to mess up. I opened up with every weapon I had and fired like I was DJ. At one point I had a particularly angry wasp on my face mask so I sprayed it with the dish soap mix. Note: don't do this unless you close your eyes. Soap mixture stings as bad as bees. After turning my carport into a superfund toxic waste site, I finally won the last and decisive battle. The bee suit was the best investment I have made in a long time. Throughout the war, I didn't take a single hit.

 

[RattlesnakeDan]

I was hanging on the edge of my set Chopper! Good job!

 

[FrankT]

Well at least I now know where to borrow a bee suit from...lol Great story and battle

 

[Ratdog68]

Great tale there Choppr!! Glad to hear we had a victory for the home team !

As you approach a nest, Ether (starting fluid) does a great job of knocking them down as they come out to defend the nest. A close friend of mine, when he bought his house decades ago, had an old box-spring in the back yard when he moved in. Had a nest of yellow-jackets in it. Ether worked great as we drug the box spring to the middle of the back yard, dowsed the nest with diesel and burned it.