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Dead wasps are the best wasps.

Wasps, hornets and yellow jackets that get established within landscapes or buildings are a serious problem. They are not so easily avoided like those out in the wild are. They are aggressive to people and pets who get too close to their nests, and attack with painful stings. Such behavior is unacceptable within the publicly accessible landscapes at work.

There are a few species of wasp, hornet or yellow jacket here. We do not get sufficiently acquainted with any of them to actually identify them. Our priority is eliminating as many of them as possible from the landscapes. Some get trapped. Others get evicted from the few nests that we locate. It is unpleasant work, but it is better than others getting stung.

Wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, or whatever they are, become more of a problem later in summer. They are just getting started for now. We were surprised to find two subterranean nests in a landscape that is in the process of being cleared for renovation. More surprisingly, they were only eight feet apart. Whomever they were, they should have been more territorial than that.

Since they are just getting started, there were not very many to get aggressive when we got too close to them. There were scarcely enough to follow as they entered and emerged from their nests. They were surprisingly easy to kill. The first nest was quite small. The second nest was a bit more concerning. We dug both out as the last few visible insects were dying.

The picture above shows a few waffle-like layers of the larger nest. Empty cells were likely left by the adult insects that were flying about and trying to defend the nest. Other cells are full of larvae that would have matured to many more of the same!

23 thoughts on “Wasps!”

      5. A quick story. A guy mows for me. Years ago he was still using a gas powered push mower. One day I was on the back porch and he came running around the side of the house in a hurry and all excited. Oh, what is wrong? Well he first ran over a rabbit’s nest and then a yellow jacket hole, right close together. He said: Now there’s baby rabbits and yellow jackets out there EVERYwhere! He wasn’t stung, cos he ran so quick. We collected 3 baby rabbits which were probably ready to leave the nest anyway and put them under some bushes. And I bought a can of good wasp etc killer and filled the yellow jacket hole with that and then a big stone. My mower guy had announced that that was too much excitement for a nice summer evening. 🙂

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      7. I hope so. We saw them for a few days and then they disappeared. Maybe they got caught by cats or hawked, or maybe made their way up to the little woods and field behind me. Lots of them live up in there.

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  3. We have some hornets building a nest attached to a leaf of one of our small palm trees near our eating area. I won’t let hubby spray with insecticde because of the bees so I gave him some hairspray. He removed the nest but some hornets who were not in the nest at the time are still flying around looking for their home.

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    1. Yes, they will do that. After we removed those at work, we watched for more, but determined that the few that we saw were just survivors from the removed nests.

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  4. A couple of years ago, some hornets built a nest in the plum tree by the garage door. I’m used to seeing paper wasps, but not hornets. I left the nest alone. A bear came along later in the summer and took care of it for me.

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  5. Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:

    Now that this old article reminds me of this problem, I realize that it has not been a problem yet this year. Perhaps last winter was unconducive to their dormancy.

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