It still knocks me out when I see anyone walk right up to a yellowjacket nest and spray things at them in broad daylight (esp after already being stung). If you’ve never been stung, it’s a good idea to avoid it, they hurt a good deal more than bee stings.
I’ve never been stung while nuking an entire nest, which is best done after dark, once they’re all in there, chilling out, hate-watching ant-man and the wasp. They can’t go after you if they can’t see you. If the nest opening is merely a hole in the ground, it’s good to make a mental note in the daytime so you can ID it easily after dark with a flashlight. After dark, douse the hole with any wasp spray and walk away…done. It’s worth the wait. No running away in fear and definitely no more wasps.
Yellowjackets are indeed best dealt with after dark, when they’re all at home in the nest. Depending on your tastes, you can either dump a pint of kerosene or gas into the nest and set it on fire (not so ecologically friendly, but you get to see a jet of flame from the nest opening), pour a large amount of boiling water into the nest, use wasp spray, or if you are mad-science-y, pour in a quantity of molten metal. On the last, the bonus is the neat metal sculpture you get if you dig it up later. I’ve posted most of these methods before. Extra points if a wasp-eating critter comes along after and digs up the nest for a snack.
So, a summer or so ago, I had some wasps living in the small attic space above my front entrance way. Normally this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but they decided to sting my kids, so they had to go. I tried sealing up all the holes I could find, spraying in some boric acid powder first to discourage them trying to get back out while the caulk was still soft. I did this for days, but they kept finding more and more ways in and out.
I finally decided to try to go into the attic space to see if I could address the nest more directly. The small attic space they were in isn’t easily accessable. You have to shimmy through a barely adult sized opeing and then you’re in a confined space–with a wasp nest. While I was heading along the less confined attic space on my way to the opening, I heard a noise. It turned out to be a wasp attacking the 48" fluroscent shop light that I was dragging along for illumination. It was about this point that I had come to the realization that crawling into a confined space with a wasp nest might not be a particularly good idea.
So, I improvised. If they like the light so much, I’d let them keep it. But I’d leave it covered in boric acid powder. That way, if they attacked it, they’d get a little on themselves. That would eventually finish off the attacker. Better would be if they went home and spread it about the nest. That way it could effect more of the hive.
I left the light there and waited for morning. The next day, there were fewer than before. Each following day brought fewer and fewer out looking for food. After about a week hadn’t seen any wasps for a day or two. I went into the attic to investigate. I found the shop light covered in a layer of dead wasps. There must have been a few hundred of them in there. I assume there was some number of them elsewhere who died from poison brought home by the more agressive members.
Being converned for the environemnt, I ran the numbers. 50W * 24 * 7 gave me 4.2KWh which is roughtly $0.50. Plus a little boric acid–which isn’t toxic to most larger life forms–and most of it never left the attic where anyone who encounters it deserves what they get. All considered, I think it had a fairly small impact–certainly less than using cans of wasp spray and tubes of calk–both of which have volatile components best kept away from living creatures that wish to remain that way.
Is far as simplicity and effectiveness goes, I’d recommend this method if it works for the situation you find yourself in. It woudln’t have worked well or the fellow in the video as the wasps had ready access to the outside and may have just ignored the light. Then again. They really do seem agressive to lights…
Totes agree… but wasps are cool. Insects are just so cool. I even had that crazy-ass micronauts wasp space-ship back in the day. Um… anywho… yes: wasps are dicks.
I still have all of the Micronaut comics back to issue one. I always wanted the wasp ship. I had to go to the neighbor’s house to play with their wasp ship (and Millennium Falcon).
My favorite Micronaut toy was the Rockettube Transport system. It didn’t work at all well, but I loved it. Never had the Wasp ship.
I spent a huge amount of time setting up micronaut battles as a kid. I’d break open flash bulbs to get the filaments inside, and then wire them up all over the battle scene to make “laser explosions.”
We moved to a house with an entire wall covered in masonry stone. It was perfect for arranging large scale battles involving all the franchises. Ha! Kind of like the big battle in Ready Player One.
I didn’t think of anything that cool. There was copious sliding on fish line across the room. But that was about it as far as innovation went.
