Yellow Jackets for Dummies (1483 hits)
Category: Science & EnvironmentalRating: 1.76 on 62 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by X54 (View user info) at 2008-08-18 23:56:32 EDT
It's around this time of year that yellow jacket wasps start to become really annoying around my place. Colonies have to start from scratch each spring since only the new queens survive the winter. The number of yellow jackets gradually increases throughout the summer until the first cold snap wipes them all out. By now there are a lot of them and they tend to be fairly aggressive. I typically get stung at least two or three times every year. The effect varies from just a little itchiness to a painful welt that can take weeks to scab over and heal. I have found as many as seven yellow jacket nests in one season within fifty feet of my house.
The yellow jackets around here nest underground. They attack when I accidentally get too close to their nest with a chainsaw or weedwacker. Two-stroke motors really rile them up. The little bastards ruin the enjoyment of being outdoors, especially if you try eating outside. It doesn't take more than a few minutes before half a dozen of them are buzzing around your plate and in your face. It's fairly easy to swat them between your hands, but woe to you if you get one stuck between your fingers. That's a painful place to get stung.
I've tried a variety of methods for eradicating them, most notably the ubiquitous inverted funnel trap. This trap is amazingly effective at racking up the body count. It's amusing to see the live yellow jackets trapped inside every evening, and very satisfying to dump their bodies out by the dozens in the morning. I used to deploy an array of these traps in a perimeter around my house, baiting them with canned cat food. My cat used to follow me around on the days I re-baited them, eating last week's crusty, maggot infested cat food.
As effective as they appear to be, however, these traps can't seem to make a dent in the overall population. The yellow jackets reproduce even faster than they fall prey to the traps. It's like trying to win a war of attrition against the Soviets during WWII: no matter how many Soviets the Germans slaughtered, more took their place.
There's a type of encapsulated poison that's supposed to work like a time release pill. The yellow jackets theoretically eat this poison (which is mixed in with bait) and take it back to the nest where they puke it up for their larval sisters before it kills them. I've had no success with this approach, either. The yellow jackets either avoided the bait altogether or died in place before leaving the feeder.
I've even tried luring them in with catfood smeared on a paper target and then shooting them with my Anschutz compressed air rifle, although this is more for marksmanship practice than anything. As their body parts accumulate on the ground beneath the target, more yellow jackets pick them up and fly off with them. Whether this is out of camaraderie or cannibalism, I'm not sure
The only truly effective means of eradicating yellow jackets is to kill their queen. This, however, is easier said than done. New queens are born toward the end of summer and are inseminated before finding a place to hibernate. As I say, these new queens are the only yellow jackets which survive the winter (although I have read recent reports of entire colonies surviving in the Southern US--a disturbing development). In March, they come out of hibernation, dig a small nest and lay their first batch of eggs. Once the eggs hatch, the queen must feed the larvae herself. This is when she's most vulnerable. Once her first brood metamorphoses and can begin foraging, she never again leaves the nest.
It's safe to assume any yellow jacket seen during March or early April is a queen out foraging for her first brood. They're easy to identify, as they're markedly larger than their worker daughters (weighing in at around two-and-a-half grains). They also make a distinctive buzzing sound. This would seem to be the optimal time to set out the inverted funnel traps. Unfortunately, in all the years I've tried, I've never caught a single queen in a trap. I have no idea why.
The only effective method I've discovered for killing queens during this phase is somewhat primitive. I wait for a queen to come buzzing around, then open the screen door and let her inside the house. Once she's trapped inside, I can sometimes hunt her down with a fly swatter. More often than not, however, she hides down in the tracks of a sliding window. This renders the fly swatter useless and I have to break out a wooden shish kebab skewer. Once I've got her wriggling body impaled on the skewer, I finish her off with a lighter. What a satisfying stink she makes then!
You might think this is a pretty inefficient way to kill yellow jackets, but I got 25 of them like that this year alone. When you consider that each queen will potentially preside over a colony of thousands, it starts to make sense. Or maybe I just enjoy hunting them down and skewering them.
Once the first brood matures, killing the queen becomes a matter of finding and destroying her nest. Locating yellow jacket nests is surprisingly difficult. Well, it's hard to do on purpose, anyway. I find the vast majority of nests accidentally, usually with a two stroke motor. Finding them this way is almost always painful.
Yellow jackets are quite stealthy around their nest. You'll never see them foraging or dilly-dallying near the entrance. It's straight in and straight out, and unless they're on Red Alert they come and go one or two at a time. The nests I discover by accident are usually in plain sight. It always surprises me that I didn't notice them before. About the only way I've had any luck hunting for them is to kick back with a sixpack and a pipeload and just watch the ground. When I see a consistent stream of them (one every few seconds) flying straight and fast instead of scouring the ground, I know there's probably a nest entrance nearby.
This, however, is a better way of getting stoned and drunk than it is of finding yellow jacket nests. I've tried setting bait out and then watching to see where they fly off to, but they move too fast for my eyes to follow. And since they're returning to any number of different nests in different locations, each insect flies off in a different direction. I've thought about tagging them with the liquid from those glow-in-the-dark safety sticks and then letting them go at night, but I haven't tried it yet.
Once found, the nest is a goner. The only question is how much time and effort it will take me and how many times I'll get stung. Aerosol cans that spray liquid or foaming poison don't always work. Yellow jackets build their nest with the entrance at the bottom. The visible hole in the ground is actually the mouth of a long tunnel that runs down below the nest proper, creating a kind of pee trap that prevents poison from filling the nest. You can kill a good number of them by spraying poison down this hole, but eventually they figure it out and dig an alternate tunnel. They often have multiple tunnels to begin with if it's a large colony. It's a nasty surprise to be spraying poison into one hole, only to have them come pouring out from another one nearby. I've sprayed nests two or three times like this only to find them active again weeks later.
I've heard that placing a large, clear glass bowl over the entrance will destroy a colony. The yellow jackets can't comprehend the clear glass, so instead of burrowing underneath the edge, they just keep buzzing against it until they drop dead. I haven't tried this yet so I can't vouch for its effectiveness. Truthfully, I'm somewhat skeptical about it.
I thought I might take advantage of the proven inverted funnel design to come up with a trap which could be set on top of the tunnel entrance to collect the yellow jackets as they emerged. After several iterations, I had to concede defeat. In emerging from their nest, they behave differently than when they depart from a food source. Not a single insect crawled up the funnel into the trap.
Finally, I attached the inverted funnel to my Shop-Vac, thinking the noise of the motor would draw them all out at once and I could vacuum them up. This proved only partially successful. They refused to come out all at once and I had to sit there waiting for them, turning the Shop-Vac on for a few seconds at a time and vacuuming them up in small batches (from a safe distance, of course, using an extension cord). This eventually did the trick, but it took nearly a whole sixpack before I got them all. Once I had them inside the vacuum body, I attached the hose to my Jeep's exhaust pipe. I still had to dig up the nest to kill the queen and her larvae.
Well, that's probably a lot more than you ever wanted to know about yellow jackets. (But if not, you can read this story: Memoirs of a Disgruntled Yellow Jacket http://archive.cynicmag.com/archive.asp?articleid=2146&cat=Features)
Now I need to get some fresh ice for the welt on my neck.
User Reviews
Submitted by John_H_Kim (user info) at 2008-09-24 13:18:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheGary (user info) at 2008-09-24 13:06:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Amazing the dedication you have to your work
I thought it was funny
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2008-08-27 16:19:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
can't remember the manufacturer, but as long as it's clear and not fast drying(probably indicates a cheap brand) it'll work
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2008-08-22 08:37:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-19 14:14:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by BobSandwich (user info) at 2008-08-19 09:06:16 PDT (#)
Ranking: 2
===================================================
Imagine that, I just so happen to have a jeep for sale.
And X, you would have had a blast at mi casa last spring...
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Jesus--I thought I had problems!
And my Jeep is a Wrangler. To get to my place, 4WD is a must in the winter.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
for sale?
so an upgrade to a better jeep? otherwise, why would you sell it?
i have a 98 GC ZJ, 5.9L used for winter skiing (mtns, no salt on roads) or for mud fun in summer.
wraglers mucho dinero in these here parts (czech republic). real value holders.
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2008-08-21 12:19:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're amusing.
Submitted by lechuza (user info) at 2008-08-21 02:33:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-08-19 12:40:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Who the fuck hangs out in boxers killing yellow jackets with home made wiley-coyotish traps?
A badass, that is who.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2008-08-20 17:48:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I admire the amount of work you put in to try and squelch your yellow jacket dilemma.
Personally, I go with the ol' tried and true "gasoline and a blow torch" method, which actually works for ALL outdoor nature annoyances...from fire ants, to wasps...from turtles to cats.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-20 17:35:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Step away from the bong, Bob.
Submitted by BobSandwich (user info) at 2008-08-20 17:17:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
X, Here is what you do.
First you are going to need to invite Bosh over; I hear he has a large anti-gravity bubble that is very large and impenetrable. What you are going to want to do is place this bubble over the whole and insert a Space Lion and a Space Bear, naturally they will want to fight each other to the death but wasp are even greater nemesis to the Space Lion and Bear respectively than they are to each other. Lion nor Bear will not stop until every fucking wasp is dead, Hacksaw Jim Dougan will signal the end of the wasp by swinging a 2x4 and yelling: "HOOOOOOO!!!!"
All you need to do is sit back with your six pack and bowl and watch with an amazement that teeters on the edge of disbelief.
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2008-08-20 16:48:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
B@W first of all.
Another approach is to use dry ice (big chunk) and the glass bowl.
In this instance you take a large chunk of dry ice 1-2 lbs. place it next to the offending tunnel entrance then place a 5 gallon bucket over it. the CO2 is heavier than air (duh) and will suffocate just about everything in the nest.
Some friends of mine theorized that you could pump propane down the hole for a few minutes and light it up, thus creating a high pressure vacumn. While this sounds like a good theory that might work if properly executed, the only time I saw it tried it just ended up making a huge fireball and suceeded in pissing off alot of em.
Another fun thing is to purchase a "weed wand" and use it to flamethrow them out of the air.
Good luck.
You also look like Junior from Reno911
Submitted by The_Drake (user info) at 2008-08-20 11:03:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like X54.
Submitted by Unabonger (user info) at 2008-08-19 23:19:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-19 22:06:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, I dressed up for the photo.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2008-08-19 21:54:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have to say, the picture where you are sitting around in what looks like your underwear, beer to the side, toes arched and on the ready on the ready to deliver the suction, is really really funny.
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-08-19 20:26:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Loved this, can I come out and watch?
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-19 19:53:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:37:25 PDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i place small dabs of slow-drying clear silicone sealer on the nests and it really fucks their whole cha-cha up
they unknowlingly transfer it in and around the nest, and onto the bodys of their dead and living buddies
when it finally drys, the geometric effect is awesome...and permanent
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Now THAT sounds really fun. I'm going to try it. I've already found another nest. What brand of silicone sealer do you recommend?
#
Submitted by tinactin (user info) at 2008-08-19 15:36:47 PDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I hate it when you drive to a venue and yellow jackets prevent you from parking where you would like. I mean, fuck, somebody is eventually going to end up in that spot anyway, right?
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It took me a few minutes to figure out what the fuck you were talking about here. But yeah, I know what you mean. Makes you feel like running them over, doesn't it? You know damn well they're only saving the best spots for their friends.
Submitted by gonefiguring (user info) at 2008-08-19 19:10:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm kidding. I read it. I just didn't have anything to add except "try not to get stung".
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-08-19 19:03:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
(Ha)^3@gonefiguring
Submitted by gonefiguring (user info) at 2008-08-19 18:57:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't read this but giving dummies a yellow jacket is as good a way as any to let the public know who who they're dealing with.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-08-19 18:54:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2008-08-19 16:37:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i place small dabs of slow-drying clear silicone sealer on the nests and it really fucks their whole cha-cha up
they unknowlingly transfer it in and around the nest, and onto the bodys of their dead and living buddies
when it finally drys, the geometric effect is awesome...and permanent
--
God, I love joedaddy.
Not in an 'I wanna fuck your breakfast' kind of way but in a 'jeezuz, he's awesome' kind of way.
Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2008-08-19 18:41:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent.
B@W
Submitted by tinactin (user info) at 2008-08-19 18:36:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I hate it when you drive to a venue and yellow jackets prevent you from parking where you would like. I mean, fuck, somebody is eventually going to end up in that spot anyway, right?
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-08-19 18:22:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I hate them, I truly do.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2008-08-19 16:37:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i place small dabs of slow-drying clear silicone sealer on the nests and it really fucks their whole cha-cha up
they unknowlingly transfer it in and around the nest, and onto the bodys of their dead and living buddies
when it finally drys, the geometric effect is awesome...and permanent
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-08-19 14:41:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
PS - I only have a few of the bastards around my place (a few slobbish neighbors have more, many more, they have nests in their roofing) so I have a great time blasting those that encroach on my territory with those sprays that go 20 - 30 feet. It's like being in a sci-fi movie. They are the alien invaders and the spray is my ray gun. I love the way they drop dead out of the sky the moment that shit touches them.
Bees I like. I will never kill a bee. Bees are... noble.
Wasps, fuck'em. Wasps are nasty opportunists.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2008-08-19 14:32:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I hate those fuckers.
One stung me on my eyelid last month.
Submitted by BobSandwich (user info) at 2008-08-19 14:27:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
X, believe it or not they kept the cockroach population down. I have a old pier & beam house so under the house is full of roaches, and for some reason so are the cottonwoods. The population has spiked so much from last year that I had an exterminator come spray around the house cause I was tired of seeing them on my poarch. Wiki says that wasp eat roaches so I guess either way I'm screwed.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-19 14:16:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
My foot is NOT diseased. Those are tan lines from my sandals.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-19 14:14:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by BobSandwich (user info) at 2008-08-19 09:06:16 PDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2008-08-19 03:56:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excellent, informative
added bonus, the jeep. what kind is it?
i am a jeep nut
===================================================
Imagine that, I just so happen to have a jeep for sale.
And X, you would have had a blast at mi casa last spring...
------
Jesus--I thought I had problems!
And my Jeep is a Wrangler. To get to my place, 4WD is a must in the winter.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:37:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is B@W material.
If it does not end up on Bored at Work, the Ubermachine is broken.
Thanks, man. Buried alive under an avalanche of stupidity here at work - this was a welcome break.
Submitted by skee (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:14:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
FOR THE DISEASED LOOKING FOOT.....
Submitted by Banjo (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:13:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ooh, my 2 fav writers on the front page at the same time. What would my day be spend doing without you both.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-08-19 12:40:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Who the fuck hangs out in boxers killing yellow jackets with home made wiley-coyotish traps?
A badass, that is who.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2008-08-19 12:24:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2008-08-19 12:18:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Who wears short shorts? YOU wear short shorts. Excellent documentary.
Submitted by BobSandwich (user info) at 2008-08-19 12:06:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2008-08-19 03:56:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excellent, informative
added bonus, the jeep. what kind is it?
i am a jeep nut
===================================================
Imagine that, I just so happen to have a jeep for sale.
And X, you would have had a blast at mi casa last spring. Under my front poarch I had Africanized honey bees, behind my house there were paper wasp, on one side there were red wasp and the other had yellow jackets. They were all segregated out real nice but on the corner of the lot there is a giant cottonwood tree that had a major hornet nest somewhere at the top. I would watch them come in a mouth rape all the others on a regular basis.
I had just bought the house and the previous owner let her cat run loose in the attic and from what I deduce cats love to tear the shit out of window screens which were at one point over the shutter vents that vent my attic. During the first of winter I watched as all the tribes slowly started migrating into my attic, I rushed inside and taped around my attic door. I figured fuck it, they can kill themselves off in what I can only imagine as the Hymenoptera conducted their own civil war above my house.
The honey bees stayed above the poarch and my woodsman friend came over and helped me pull the tin off the poarch top and extract the hive. He took it home and added it to his other collections.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-08-19 11:57:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I always preferred the fogging type device, sprayed directly into the hole while wearing leather work gloves. Or encouraging the cats to eat them. Or moving.
Submitted by Jack_of_Spades (user info) at 2008-08-19 11:52:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
====================================================================
Submitted by Jorge_Burrito (user info) at 2008-08-19 01:18:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No idea why, but I found this entertaining to read.
Submitted by Darth_Famine (user info) at 2008-08-19 11:30:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-19 10:46:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks for all the advice. I agree, gasoline or diesel or napalm would probably be the most effective weapon. But living in this tinderbox called California makes any flammable (inflammable?) solution a risky proposition.
I like the idea of importing some non-native species that would eat the little bastards. If you've got something specific in mind I'll give it a try.
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well as I am "Take me to the fucking hospital quick before I die" allergic to yellow jackets concern for the environment takes a backseat to my own mortality when it comes to them.
get a waterhose and wet the area around it down after you light the nest.
if you dont have a waterhose handy make a circle of cinderblocks around the hole.
10 blocks should do it. then just stamp out anything that gets past it.
Submitted by retrospect (user info) at 2008-08-19 11:26:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
you have THE longest pinky toe i have ever seen
Submitted by goatfucker (user info) at 2008-08-19 11:17:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The glass bowl thing does work. It's really neat to see them stuck in it too. Wait till night when they're all asleep and make sure that it's sealed around the ground really well.
If you're looking for a predator I hear that skunks eats them.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2008-08-19 10:51:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-08-19 09:14:59 CDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-08-19 09:00:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:16:56 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
I think I was justified in inquiring if I could purchase some Napalm.
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Make your own. Petrol and polystyrene. Or gas and styrofoam if you prefer.
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It sticks to kids, I hear.
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Brilliant!
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-08-19 10:46:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks for all the advice. I agree, gasoline or diesel or napalm would probably be the most effective weapon. But living in this tinderbox called California makes any flammable (inflammable?) solution a risky proposition.
I like the idea of importing some non-native species that would eat the little bastards. If you've got something specific in mind I'll give it a try.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-08-19 10:14:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-08-19 09:00:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:16:56 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
I think I was justified in inquiring if I could purchase some Napalm.
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Make your own. Petrol and polystyrene. Or gas and styrofoam if you prefer.
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It sticks to kids, I hear.
Submitted by Poots (user info) at 2008-08-19 09:36:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I would learn their language and get to know the lower level drones. This, of course, would lead to many drive by-ings/stingings of other compteting hives. I'd probably be asked to snort pollen or some sort thing. I might even have to rape a bee, who knows, but I'd do it all in order to gain their trust so that I could eventually gain access to the queens throne room and murder that bitch cold bloodedly with a morning star to the back of the head spilling everlasting life giving wasp blood everywhere.
Not really .../sigh
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-08-19 09:00:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:16:56 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
I think I was justified in inquiring if I could purchase some Napalm.
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Make your own. Petrol and polystyrene. Or gas and styrofoam if you prefer.
Submitted by jtrujillo34 (user info) at 2008-08-19 08:23:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+4 for the beer
-2 for the gay shorts
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2008-08-19 08:16:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I fear and loathe wasps and hornets.
I spied a wasp nest that was too near my place. Although they didn't find it amusing, I think I was justified in inquiring if I could purchase some Napalm.
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2008-08-19 07:57:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good stuff
Submitted by Darth_Famine (user info) at 2008-08-19 07:24:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
For sure fire death and destruction of the colony all you need is a 5 gallon can of gas or diesel or kerosene
pour it all into the entrance
wait half an hour come back and light it
fills the nest with fumes, which kill most of them and turn it into an oven once lit.
works for me every time, I have never had a nest of them recover.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-08-19 07:19:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I fucking hate wasps so applaud your efforts and wish you every luck in your (no doubt life-long) war against the little fuckers.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-08-19 07:09:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Death Sprayers"
Yesssssssss
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2008-08-19 06:27:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I think actual uncanned catfood would make for better bait than just plain canned catfood in your traps, but hell, judging by this post you're the expert so what would I know?
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-08-19 06:25:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Bugtastic tale. Yellowjackets were the bane of summer when I had the Coolest Backyard in Greenwood, Indiana®. They (and love bugs and flies) are why we put screen cages around the swimming pool in Florida.
I got stung by a scorpion the other day, in my goddamned living room. I declared Jihad on the Centruroides gracilis menace. There are now no Florida Bark Scorpions alive within 10 feet of my house, and my sprayer drips with death for the infedel defilers.
Death Sprayers are so much less entertaining than a sixpack and a foot-controlled vacuum, but they are so much faster.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-08-19 05:47:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have an appaling phobia of wasps so I find your behaviour neither obsessive nor unusual. Indeed, I admire the "go get em'" attitude.
Perhaps concrete is the answer? Or a scorched earth policy? Burn the top grass and then saturate the soil with some manner of poison so that nothing can live? That would probably not work.
I think the previously mentioned biological alternative is the best method. There must be some manner of benign creature which you can introduce to fucking kill all of those hateful things.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-08-19 04:04:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Seems to me...*rubs chin*...that what you wanna do is introduce a meaner, larger, wasp-eating pest to the environment. Tarantulas or Bullfrogs or Mongolian Squirrels or some such thing, that will eat the pesky wasps.
I find that picture of you on the porch with the binoculars very, very funny.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-08-19 04:00:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Has a yellow jacket below
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2008-08-19 03:56:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excellent, informative
added bonus, the jeep. what kind is it?
i am a jeep nut
Submitted by SullyThePirate (user info) at 2008-08-19 01:28:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was the best original piece on yellow jackets I've read today on this site so, here.
Submitted by Jorge_Burrito (user info) at 2008-08-19 01:18:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No idea why, but I found this entertaining to read.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2008-08-19 00:08:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you have thought of several interesting ways to kill insects.
i'd try the glass bowl, it sounds like it would work
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-08-18 23:59:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Um....thanks...?