Two summers ago, I mowed over a nest of yellowjackets. It hurt.
Last night? It happened again.
And I will tell you what, those stings HURT. I got nailed on the ankle last night, and it STILL hurts this morning. I slept with an ice pack on it last night. Call the waaaaaambulance. Sheesh.
Unlike last time, when I ninja-d up before attacking the nest, last night I just waited for dark, grabbed the can of napalm from the garage, and emptied that sucker into the hole.
Goddam motherf*ckers sting ME? I ANNIHILATE your asses.
F*cking bees.
13 comments:
Spray may not get them all. Get a clear glass bowl (if you have to buy one, do so). It should have a fairly large diameter, like a Pyrex pie plate or mixing bowl. At night, when all the beasts are in the nest, turn the bowl over the entrance to the nest, and press it to the ground so there is no visible gap. In the morning, yellowjackets will see the light and will fly up into the bowl, but will not be able to get out. They aren't smart enough to go under the edge or to dig a new entrance. Within a week, the entire nest, including the queen and eggs, will be dead.
Holy shit, ~~Silk, that's positively Machiavellian. How do you come up with this stuff?
If they have to die (AND THEY DO), I think I'd rather give 'em a quick and merciful death than have them starve/suffocate to death. I dunno.
And ... glass bowl? What is this glass bowl of which you speak? Is it anything like a dish drainer? Haaaaaaaaaa. :)
Don't like starving them, eh? You could go the redneck route: Get your garden hose out and ready for just in case. Pour gasoline down the hole at night. Make a trail of gasoline about 3 feet from the hole. Drop a match at the end of that trail and run. Pray that the yellowjacket nest does not extend to the underground natural gas line. Put out the brushfire with the hose.
Spray doesn't usually work because the nest has branches that the spray won't reach, and the queen, her attendants, and the larvae don't get hit by the spray. So you kill some, maybe even most, but not all. The bowl technique gets all. It also gets rid of any larval queens who might think your lawn is "home" for next year.
They must die. I ran over a nest of them when I was 12. I have a fear of buzzy things to this day.
~~Silk, thanks for the clarification. Now I understand.
and Becs, I'm with you. I know that bees are critical to pollination and blahblahblah, but man, those stings hurt. And the thing is, if they had just nested ten feet away, on the other side of the ditch? I never even would have known they were there. Stupid bees. :)
My favored solution: shopvac.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yat1pWIFS3Y
-bridgett
At least they stung you in the ankle instead of your ASS, like they did me last year. Still ankle hurts too. Feel better.
Don't confuse bees and yellowjackets. YJs have no role in pollination. They mainly eat protein. If they have any role in agriculture, it's that caterpillars are a major food source for them. In fact, YJs can be devastating to a bee colony, because when food is in short supply in the fall, they will raid beehives and steal the bees' winter stores of honey.
See http://www.clemson.edu/extension/beekeepers/factsheets/yellow_jackets.html, skip down to "Food". Also check out "Bee Lining" - could be useful information for before mowing next spring. Note - it doesn't have to be "freshly caught fish"; a hunk of hotdog will also work.
Well, they don't actually EAT protein. They forage for protein instead of pollen because protein is what they feed their babies. The adults eat a kind of honeydew produced by the babies. Unlike bees, YJs don't make and store honey.
Agh. It's complicated. Get the damn bowl. Feel no guilt.
YJs are so mean that if the babies didn't produce honeydew, they probably wouldn't feed them at all!
He he! Gotcha back for the Stephen King post!
bridgett, that video was awesome. I wouldn't have wanted to empty the "protein soup" out of the vac, though.
and Rob, I'm sorry that you took it in the butt. HA! I hope you had a happy birthday.
~~Silk, thanks for all the info! You can park in my comments any time! Now that I know that yellowjackets are basically assholes, the bowl is going over the nest tonight.
And I'm beginning to wonder if those little mo-fos did some nerve damage or something - my ankle STILL hurts like hell. I can't even touch it. Wait, I'll touch it right now - Ouch! Dammit.
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