Mean Bees & Stinging Varmits

Yesterday after weed eating around a flower/rock garden I did a little work around it and quit. Went back a couple of hrs later, tripped over my own feet and landed belly first in the rocks, kinda knocked the wind out of me. The wife saw and asked the usual questions you can't answer because you're too busy trying to breath. She mentioned calmly that a "few" bees were buzzing around me and that got my attention. I had fallen on a YELLOW JACKET nest with my chest covering it. With lightning reflexes born of fear I rolled out and made my escape without getting stung. The nest was under a rock my chest was on. Moved the rock after dark and a quart of gasoline and a match got 99% of them. Many nests & more snakes this year. Anyone have a better way to get rid of yellow jackets that the ole gasoline bonfire especially where you can't burn. I was kinda between a rock and a hard place if you know what I mean:eek:

if you pour boiling water down in the yellow jackets nests it will kill them also. i usually boil a couple tea kettles full and that does the trick.

Important.. do this AT NIGHT! lol while the bees are in the nests.

youre right about them being more plentiful this year.

i made 2 bee traps out of 20 oz water bottles and used molasses for bait in the bottom and caught a bunch of yellow jackets this past week and am still catching them. i took the traps apart and cleaned them , put in fresh molasss and re-taped them with duct tape.

i had originally baited them with kool-aid but i caught alot of honey bees which i released.


since i switched to molasses i havent caught any honey bees. evudentally they arent attracted to black strap molasses.

im glad you didnt get stung. you were lucky

I've been told that about the boiling water before too, never had to try it myself, but it is safer. I'm pretty much of a mind that if TrappinGal said it, it's true, so there ya go Pop!

Thanks Son, I will take the flame thrower back to WV Rent a Weapon but by the time I get the water to the nest it won't be boiling anymore. Now my life is more complicated.

take your coleman stove and a pot, boil it on site. :)

hopefully youre near water, if not, a gallon of water only weighs 8 lbs :D

Good old bacon grease and a tiger torch does the trick around here. Works great and smells good too.

Bragg, buddy...that requires some explanation. What in the #### do you do with bacon grease when you're using a tiger torch?

There is a company (Victor?) that makes a spray made from mint extract. It kills them just as fast as the noxious chemicals do. And it smells great. I have been using it for years. The spray is non-toxic to non-insects, pets, and humans.

sevin dust is your friend

All of the above methods will work, but each has their own drawback. I recommend that you watch them in the evening, around dusk. They will often have multiple intrances to their nests. Once you find all of the entrance holes you can treat. A yellow jacket (wasp) will send out an alarm fermone when it is in danger calling all of its "friends" to give you a welcome. I prefer to use a wasp and hornet spray (the kind that gives you a real heavy flood of insecticide that shoots about 15 ft). This type of product kills them on contact. If you've identified multiple entrances/exits I like to cover all but one with a rock or something then spray the entire can into the entrance that I leave open. Do not immediately uncover the other holes.(Iwait at least 30 minutes) If you have any remaining, you can treat those holes.

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Originally Posted by trax

Bragg, buddy...that requires some explanation. What in the #### do you do with bacon grease when you're using a tiger torch?

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Its for nests in the ground or rock piles and such when they are down deep.

You heat the bacon grease to a boil in a coffee can and pour over/into hornets nest. Then lighter up. It's my sons job when he visits. Sting have no affect on him. Last year I found a basketball sized wasps nest under my front steps. My son grabbed onto it, walked over and threw it into the burning barrel and set it on fire. He sustained over 30 stings without hesitation.

I run away like a scared girl.

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Originally Posted by BraggSurvivor

My son grabbed onto it, walked over and threw it into the burning barrel and set it on fire. He sustained over 30 stings without hesitation.

I run away like a scared girl.

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30 stings?:eek: Even if I weren't allergic to them, I would still feel the pain!!! Geesh, he's a stronger man than me!!:eek:

A few weeks back, while working on my offdays helping a friend, I took a hit from a red wasp. The nest was hidden in the rafters just above where we were putting up vinyl soffits. I ran to the cooler to put ice on the sting so that I would not swell like a balloon, and my friend pulled out this spray bottle filled with soap and water. He sprayed the wasps on the nest and they flew maybe 3 feet before falling to the ground and dieing. The soapy water covers them and smothers them because they (as most insectes do) breathe through their skin. Gasoline also works, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIGHT IT EITHER!!

But lighting it is sooooooo much more fun.

I think it's kinda funny that you are saying there are more nests this year.... we need to tell the scientists that the bees aren't dieing off, they're moving to WV :P

Ah, but yellow jackets, although similar looking to a honey bee are a wasp, not a bee. Remember wasps can sting multiple times, while a bee only once.

One of the big difference between bees and wasps is that bees feed almost entirely on pollen and nectar, while wasps are predators and feed mostly on insects.

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Originally Posted by Scoobywan

I think it's kinda funny that you are saying there are more nests this year.... we need to tell the scientists that the bees aren't dieing off, they're moving to WV :P

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I have climbed telephone, power poles & microwave towers for 32yrs up and down the East Coast and haven't seen it this bad before. We got some good stuff years ago would knock'em out of the air at a dozen feet but it was Freon based. When I retired the Wasp Stopper we had we filled the cap with it, caught the wasps with long nose and drowned the suckers. It's a terrible feeling to climb a high pole, open a boot full of red wasps and the cans little spray button flips off, you just hold still and take a sting or two. Crash we poured 2 1/2 gal of gasoline in one hole, touched it off (was after dark) and had flames shoot a dozen feet high is several yards in the neighborhood. AH, the good ole days:rolleyes:

Kind of like a campfire. You know the kind. You sit around telling stories to captivate the younglings. The kids are sipping hot chocolate. Dad has spiked his with something a bit stronger. With the fire all aglow the urge for food kicks in, and the time honored tradition of roasting marshmallows, hot dogs and wasps commences.

Unless they try to build an addition onto my house, I leave them alone. I want the bees to pollinate my plants and the wasps to help get rid of the insects. They are heck on cabbage worms and other pesky "no-wants" in the garden. The absolute coolest was a female cicada killer that appeared last year. She worked most of the summer burying cicadas around the yard. I was hoping to see more of them this year but either they moved on after being born or they just didn't make it.:( Most folks would think they are a hornet at first glance. They are huge!

You may still have luck in seeing them. I believe they emerge from their cocoons in the July/August time frame.