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On tractors.

2 bales of hay, next to a building. Notice a bug flying towards the bales. Go closer for a better look. Immediately start backpedaling rapidly. Seems that YellowJackets decided to hollow out the inside of one or both of the bales and make a nest. Cant burn it, it's right next to a building. Spray? I doubt that I'd get all the larvae in the nest.

Enclosed cab on the tractor.... Hmmmmm........ It's sealed pretty tight, A/C can keep it cool. There's a pile of branches that need to be burned...

O.K. Grabbed the bales of hay with the grapple bucket. They were NOT happy, I repeat NOT happy! I wonder how many stingers got bent as they tried to zap the tractor?? grin The bales now reside on top of the burn pile. I'll wait a few days for the cloud to subside, and hopefully all the others that were out foraging to find their new home. Then torch the pile after dark and they are all inside. There was a slot in the bale of hay about 2" high and 1" wide where they made an entry. I have no idea how large the nest was, but there were 100's of yellow jackets flying around the tractor and the bucket.


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First, angered snappers, now very angered Yellow jackets. For cryin out loud, next it will be irate mother in laws. NO, I'm not tryin to start somethin.


Do nature a favor, spay/neuter your pets and any weird friends or relatives.
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First, angered snappers, now very angered Yellow jackets. For cryin out loud, next it will be irate mother in laws. NO, I'm not tryin to start somethin.


Do nature a favor, spay/neuter your pets and any weird friends or relatives.
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Did you escape completely unscathed? (unstung).


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
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Yellow Jackets can be a nuisance. Twice I have had a nest under my trailer (not the camper) First time I was hooking the truck up to haul some stuff and Luna got stung. OK, that peaked my curiosity. A decent nest underneath. Trailer was hooked up, Luna was in the truck. I grabbed a scraper out of the shed and sheared the nest off, then ran like 4355, jumped in my truck and never looked back.

Second time, at the shop. A buddy wanted to borrow the trailer. It was swarming a tad to say the least. He's allergic to bee stings and I am not all that fond of getting stung myself. If you have ever had a Wasp sting you on the tongue, you can talk just like Fat Albert. laugh

Anyway, Chuck and Luna were in the building. I had a short straight shovel and had to crawl under the trailer to get to this nest. Sheared it off so it dropped to the ground, then got out of there and ran like 4355. All clear! I ran over the nest with my truck after Chuck pulled away with the trailer.

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Originally Posted By: sprkplug
Did you escape completely unscathed? (unstung).


Yes. I've been nailed before, and while I may be a slow learner, some lessons are more painful than others.

It was kinda interesting to see them landing on the windshield of the tractor and wondering why they couldn't get to me. grin

Roughly 500' from building to burn pile, another 800' to where the tractor gets parked, so I had plenty of distance from any mad yellow jackets before I had to get out of the tractor.


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JKB, you're a braver man than I am! If I couldn't have moved the bales, I would have sprayed them REALLY good with Pounce, waited a few days and gone back to check, probably spraying it all again.


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I don't know if I would call that brave, maybe stupid! In 2004 we were invaded by yellow jackets. They were everywhere, so I had some experience messing with them. I didn't find them to be that aggressive. Never got stung, but you need an exit plan just in case you really tick them off.

Now those Bald Face Hornets at your buddies place on the electrical box, they just looked down right mean!!!

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Around home, yellow jackets are darn mean and aggressive. I am happy that we have very few. Baldfaced hornets are bit more common and also take exception to being bothered.

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Anyone else ever killed a few minutes watching hornets pluck flies off the backs of livestock? They seldom miss.


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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RAH, I've had the same experience as you. Yellow Jackets seem to have a chip on their shoulders, Bald Faced Hornets really need to be poked and prodded to get mad.

Tony, no, I've never see that!


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Originally Posted By: sprkplug
Anyone else ever killed a few minutes watching hornets pluck flies off the backs of livestock? They seldom miss.


Tony, I haven't, but I've darn sure watched dirt dobbers drag huge spiders to their doom. I've read that they do sting, but I've never known anybody that got bit by one.

I think Scott just has a "bite me" sign on his back.


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Originally Posted By: esshup
Bald Faced Hornets really need to be poked and prodded to get mad.


Then, why did you exit stage left at about the same speed I did? I've never seen a Bald Face Hornet before. I guess the mean is in their ugly.

We were only a few feet from the nest, so I guess they are rather docile. I think the windows rolled up pretty quick tho, as a precaution!

Thinking about it, if that were a Yellow Jacket nest, and with the higher temps that afternoon, getting that close probably would have been an issue with them.

It was rather interesting knocking down the weeds and walking to the electrical boxes, then going Whoa!, I'm stopping right here!

I'm not fond of flying insects with stingers, but I do like Bumble Bees.

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Originally Posted By: FireIsHot
I think Scott just has a "bite me" sign on his back.


laugh laugh laugh

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Hornets are extremely predacious. When we were kids, my sister and I would go out in the field where the cows were laying under a tree, and lay down with them and rest our heads on the cows stomachs. Those hornets would buzz around the cows, pick out a fly and BAM! They would also take flies in midair. Pretty cool.


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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We have a huge yellow jacket nest in the wall of our front porch. I have a full bee keepers outfit and I'm still to chicken to deal with them. Last time I fought a war with ground hornets, the little buggers found a way into my sleeve. Way more tenacious than honey bees.

I actually am going to call the exterminator on this nest. Pounded the wall inside, and there was a cloud of hundreds upon hundreds of bees outside. I should take a video now that I think of it!

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Go at night and spray the entry hole with a product called perm up. http://www.cdms.net/LDat/ld5MK013.pdf

You probably need a license to buy it, maybe you know someone who has one? It's the same as Pounce, but a lot less expensive.

With I'll put 3-4 fl. oz. in a 2 1/2 gallon pump up sprayer along with 8 oz. of malathion. Douse the area good, then run like you know what.

There is a residual that will work for a while too, but you might have to hit a few times to get 'em all.

Last year I felt like I DID have a target on my back. I was nailed by bees twice and a bald faced hornet once. I was walking thru a patch of clover with sandals on and just as I thought to myself "self, you better watch where you're walking, you are liable to get a bee inside the sandal and it ain't going to be a happy camper" I felt one crawling on my foot. I couldn't get the sandal off quick enough!

2nd time I was driving down the road with the windows down. I felt something hit my upper arm (that was covered by the short sleeved shirt) and I watched a honeybee roll down my arm, trying to sting as it rolled over and over. Before I could react quick enough to shake it off my arm I got nailed on the forearm. Nothing to do except get the knife out and scrape the stinger/poison sac off my arm.

I was doing some tree injection work and it felt like someone wound up and hit the back of my upper thigh with a baseball bat. Couldn't see what nailed me, but it hurt like the dickens, the back of my leg got red and swelled up for about 6"-8" all around where I got nailed. I hobbled around for 3 days. When the leaves started falling from the trees I noticed a bald faced hornet nest in the tree that I was chopping wth the roofing hatchet to inject with poison. If someone was beating on your house you'd be mad too!

Last edited by esshup; 09/01/14 09:44 PM.

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I used to be a hobbyist bee keeper with about 25 colonies. One colony somehow acquired a junk queen that laid eggs that turned into danged aggressive bees. This was before the Africanized bees hit Texas. Smoke didn't calm them. I had to tape around the wrists and ankles of my suit. Then a couple got inside my veil. You haven't really lived until you try to kill a bee that's an inch from your nose and pissed off. And, you can't remove the veil when the rest are attacking. I had to take those stings. I tried to catch and kill the queen but she was too fast for me. I finally waited until night, taped the entrance, and carried the whole works away from the other hives. I doused it with gas and set the whole works on fire.

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My wife, Jodi, and I were checking the fish feeders last weekend when she got stung by a yellow jacket that had taken up residence in a crevice of the feeder and immediately started doing the "I just got stung by a yellow jacket" dance.

The nest got eliminated "with malice" this weekend.


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You know that somewhere cows or horses have had to deal with this same problem with access to much less technology.

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Originally Posted By: Jakeroo
You know that somewhere cows or horses have had to deal with this same problem with access to much less technology.


But they can run faster than I can!!!

Years ago a buddy had a large Doberman. She was more of a protection dog, "pet" quality was secondary. She stuck her nose in a hole in the ground and ran like heck for the house. I don't know if it was ground nesting bees or yellow jackets, but she sure turned into a meek dog when that happened! She wanted nothing to do with that area of the yard for a long time.


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Originally Posted By: Dave Davidson1
Then a couple got inside my veil. You haven't really lived until you try to kill a bee that's an inch from your nose and pissed off. And, you can't remove the veil when the rest are attacking.


I had a swarm that ended up inside the siding of my place in Alabama. It was some 17' off the ground. I stood on a ladder on the deck to get up there to drill a hole and spray. They came out to play. They ended up tangled in my beard. You can't flail about when up in precarious positions. Take the hits and get out as briskly as possible. Better than ending up in the hospital.

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I killed off a nest of yellow jackets this weekend...they had built in a hole in the root system of a big maple tree near the kids swing set. I'd normally leave well enough alone but that close to where all the kids play, they had to go.

Filled the hole with some old fuel/oil mix for the chainsaw and lit er up. Problem solved.

Now fast forward 48 hours, was out on the big pond fishing with the fam. Had a good mess of fish to clean for dinner so we headed in. Was trying to tie up the pontoon boat when I discovered Red Wasps had built a (fairly large) nest right below the East bollard I tie off to. After a couple of stings to the extremities I got the spray and did for them too.

Red wasp stings HURT...still does today.


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Originally Posted By: DNickolaus


I had a swarm that ended up inside the siding of my place in Alabama. It was some 17' off the ground. I stood on a ladder on the deck to get up there to drill a hole and spray. They came out to play. They ended up tangled in my beard. You can't flail about when up in precarious positions. Take the hits and get out as briskly as possible. Better than ending up in the hospital.


What? No video??? Your spouse should have seen that one coming and recorded it for us. laugh


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Originally Posted By: snrub
Originally Posted By: DNickolaus


I had a swarm that ended up inside the siding of my place in Alabama. It was some 17' off the ground. I stood on a ladder on the deck to get up there to drill a hole and spray. They came out to play. They ended up tangled in my beard. You can't flail about when up in precarious positions. Take the hits and get out as briskly as possible. Better than ending up in the hospital.


What? No video??? Your spouse should have seen that one coming and recorded it for us. laugh


Back in 2004 when we got invaded. I didn't have a cam corder, nor a cell that would take pics or videos. That would have been interesting.


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