Yellowjackets everywhere!

[austinhart123]

i didnt finish reading your post cuase im in a rush but i have the same problem here, i use the hanging traps and they help
goodluck

 

[#1California Chick]

Quote:
Hanging traps only help with yellow jackets that are flying IN from a yard outside of yours!!!

If you have a nest in your yard that has THOUSANDS OF YELLOW JACKETS, a hanging trap won't do squat!!!

Cindy

 

[jkcmj]

I have been in the pest control business for 14 years and for us it is very easy and relatively safe to kill the hive using an insecticide dust that the bees/wasps help to spread through the hive.

I also keep honey bees so am not anti-bee. All bees and wasps are benificial, wasps and yellow jackets to my wallet, and honey bees to my tummy!

Just be very careful who you recommend using gas on their bees. Someone who is allergic or elderly should always use a proffesional rather than risk death. Last year I had a horribely disfigured elderly woman call for a bee job. She had, on the advice of her son 1000 miles away, thrown gas at her porch siding where the yellow jackets were emerging. Dozens of stings, and a luckily minor fall trying to escape, and just a few days in the hospital recovering and she ended up calling us anyway. She was not even allergic, but the huge number of stings located on her face, neck, throat area caused massive swelling and shock.

 

[jkcmj]

By the way, I like to use rootbeer syrup in icecream bucket covers or similar and just a drop of dish detergent to break down the surface tension of the rootbeer so the bees drown easily. This has for me worked the best for in the yard or picnic area. One gallon cover can trap hundreds of bees in a couple of hours if you get it in the right place.

 

[journey11]

Do you have something around that might be drawing them? I know if I leave any fruit on my porch or set my compost pail out for too long without dumping it they come after that. Also, do you have any fruit trees? My apple trees attract them by the 1000's when the fruit starts to drop and rot. I use the 2-ltr bottle method too. By the end of the season you will have literally tens of thousands of jellowjackets and hornets in there.

 

[fordmommy]

These are only about $6.00. You can put a little water, dish soap, and tuna in te bottom. Works great. They go in to eat the tuna, fall into the water/dish soap, get it on their wings, can't fly, and drowned. It's just that time of year. They are getting ready for winter.

 

[TheBirdhouse]

sometimes a bee hive will split up, to find new territory, and will stop somewhere to rest in a large swarm, and are just passing through, ive seen this happen before.

Its weird, everyone talks about the bees being bad this year, but ive hardly seen any. Usually i get those mud dabbers, or the annoying hornets that make those open type nests, but i havent had any around at all, the only bees ive really seen this year are bumble bees, Im in northern ontario and its been a cool wet year so maybe thats why the bees arent bad around here.

I would recommend that spray that goes like 8 feet, something like that, it kills them almost instantly, the besy time is to get them late in the evening just when its almost too dark to see out, that way you get them all.

 

[toletiquesbysam]

I don't know if mine are "yellowjackets" I just call them wasps. I had 3 that were looking at a small opening under the column on our front porch. So I got the flying insect killer spray and sprayed them. Then last night , I was cleaning the geese/chicken pooh off the front porch and came into the garage and felt this terrible pain in my ankle and I grabbed at it and off drops a wasp, I stepped on him but he'd already done the deed to me! So I must have more wasps around there that didn't get killed from the spray! Nasty things, and boy did that hurt!!

Later then DD yelled up the stairs that they had one in the basement, so I had to go down and kill that one too!!

 

[claud]

Thanks everyone.

The yellowjackets are still here. What actually attracted the mass numbers was a hemlock tree my DH cut down. It wasn't that there was a nest in it but the chopped up tree was literally covered with yellowjackets going after the sap.

We do have a nest in the wall of an outbuilding which we just found and are going to spray.

I bought a trap and made a couple homemade ones. Hung them up last night but today has been cool and the wasps are not as active - did catch quite a few though.

I found a really great website that has information about about yellowjackets and hornets.

www.whytrap.com

Yellowjackets are not endangered and some species are actually invasive.

 

[chicknmania]

Well, the frisbee didn't work, I thought it might not, they just tunneled under it. But, we left the frisbee there, and interesting scenario last night, as I watched Dazzle (our main roo) lead his flock home from our yard to the barn, at dusk. They marched in a single file line within inches of the nest. Dazzle stopped by the nest, turned around, and pecked the frisbee, or something on the frisbee, who knows.. Then he continued on, but one or two of every three chickens that followed stopped to peck the frisbee, or the ground near the nest, too. The last one in line hurried by as if she was being buzzed. So.....I had a friend tell me her hen kills bees but never eats them....and today I noticed there is very little activity near the nest....ihmmmm. Anyway, I have another remedy...you cover the hole on a cool night with like an old plastic bucket lid, and cut a hole in the lid to fit the nest hole. Then, you pour a cup of liquid laundry soap down there, then fill the hole with water and keep it filling for the next ten or fifteen minutes. They will drown. I have not tried this yet, but that is probably what we will do if our chickens haven't been killing them off for us...better for the environment, and safer, then poison or gasoline. My mother used to just pour boiling water down the hole at night...I guess that works, too. I am glad they are jellowjackets and not something bigger. We have mud dauber wasps too; they like our brick house, but they never bother us.