Wasp nest!!

[albertdesalvo]

So I go out to my woodshed, where I haven't been for about three weeks, to get my car ramps. The plan is to work on my truck. But as I step into the shed, ZAP..... stung under my ear. I reel backwards, exit the shed, and take stock.

There, hanging from the roof of the shed, is a paper wasp nest about the size and shape of a Canadian football. It was not there three weeks ago!!

These are truly industrious little buggers, to have built such a structure in such a short period of time. I have observed them, and believe me the US carrier force has nothing on them when it comes to defence...... they fly sorties all day long and never let their guard down.

I've heard they are vulnerable at night, when they're all supposed to be in the nest, but in this hot weather they seem to congregate on the outside of the nest and it's too risky to approach. One thing is for sure, they react instantly to a flashlight.

So I've researched it on the net, and I have a general idea of how people get rid of these nests. Now I'd like to ask for real world experience.

When I was a kid, we'd soak a rag in gas, put it on the end of a pole, light it up and put it under the nest, and wait for it to fall, burning, to the ground. That was my father's method. Can't use it here unless I want to burn down my own woodshed.

[into the blue]

This is my method:

[moocow]

May be give this one a try? Doesn't involve fire or chemicals but it seem to take a long time.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Wasp-Trap

[crazy_aviator]

I use an industrial vacuum to suck those suckers up !! Just remember to put water in the can and dont open it tooooo soooon

[Siddley Hawker]

Are they regular paper wasps or yellow jackets? Wasps are bad enough, but yellow jackets are vicious bastards. You're lucky you didn't get swarmed because when one attacks it releases pheromenes that attract others in the nest to join in the attack. I had a nest under the eaves of my woodshed some years ago, it was about the size of my two fists held together. The best time to get them is at twilight when most of them are back in the nest. I used an entire can of wasp blaster, can't remember the name of it - BlackFlag? really soaked the nest with it. Be careful and good luck. Like I said wasps are bad news, but yellow jackets are worse.

Wasps are very territorial, you won't find two nests within hundreds of feet of each other. Canadian Tire sells fake wasp nests, made of paper, about the size of a football. They apparently work like a charm at keeping the buggers away.

[iflyforpie]

Those fake wasp nests work wonders. Basically just a paper patio lantern coloured grey.

As far as wasps go, I've used the raid wasp spray and it works pretty good. For more aggressive ones, I put some gas in a garden sprayer and sprayed the living daylights out of it. You don't light it, it just melts them in mid air.

There are always wasps around the airport and when I am in the shop I will usually spray them with whatever is handy. Brake clean and carb clean seem to be about the most lethal (instant).

[JakeYYZ]

I’ll look for those fake wasp nests and give it a go.

I’ve had to deal with yellow jackets every year for the last 7 or 8.
A nest the size of a football will have several hundred wasps. Numbers like that can kill you.
Unlike bees, they can sting over and over again.
Sid is right; twilight is your best bet. Dress appropriately..I wear a slicker, heavy loose fitting slacks, fishing net hat, goggles, thick gloves, and tape my ankles, waist and wrists. Have a plan for retreat. Have someone on hand to open and close a door, or call 911. I use “Ortho Bug-Be-Gon Max”. The effective range is 1.5m. First time I dealt with a nest the size of a tennis ball, I was stung 15-20 times. It taught me to dress appropriately... and apply vinegar to the stings.
Be careful and think it through.

[North Shore]

Unless you desperately need access to your woodshed on a daily basis for the next ~ 1.5 months, why not just let them be? The cold temps coming along in the autumn will kill them off soon enough...
Wasps are pretty beneficial insects - they feed their young on other insects.

[albertdesalvo]

Unless you desperately need access to your woodshed on a daily basis for the next ~ 1.5 months, why not just let them be? The cold temps coming along in the autumn will kill them off soon enough...
Wasps are pretty beneficial insects - they feed their young on other insects.

Yes, this is what I'd prefer to do, but I don't know if I can wait that long. Thare's a long extension cord in there under some tarps, and I need it. I am going to try to sneak the tarps out one at a time until I can get to the cord.

[albertdesalvo]

I use an industrial vacuum to suck those suckers up !! Just remember to put water in the can and dont open it tooooo soooon

Way too risky.

[albertdesalvo]

I used an entire can of wasp blaster, can't remember the name of it - BlackFlag? really soaked the nest with it.

Yes, this is what I was looking for, someone with experience with this stuff. They sell it at Cantire for nine bucks. You are supposed to aim it at the nest from 20ft. My preliminary scouting indicates these guys have the 20ft range covered!!

[North Shore]

If you go in there on a cooler night, after dark, you should be ok to move around for a while - they'll be pretty lethargic due to the cold. I'd still wear some protective clothing, though..

[albertdesalvo]

It's been so hot, no chance of approaching the nest. They are very active. In a perfect world, I will do as NS suggests and just leave them alone. But there's stuff in that shed I need, and I don't know if I can wait that long.

These are ordinary paper wasps, very common and not usually troublesome. But they sure as hell will defend their nests, as I found out.

[niss]

My first thought is burn the shed to the ground....scorched earth. Then they will know who has the opposible thumbs.

My next thought is zip tie a can of raid and throw it in the shed until it's empty.

[albertdesalvo]

First time I dealt with a nest the size of a tennis ball, I was stung 15-20 times.

Wow! This nest is much bigger than a tennis ball. It's hard to believe they built it in three weeks, but they did. It's still very hot here, and they are active even at night. The nest has at least fifty of them on the outside at 3am. When it was cooler at night, they were all inside.

[Brewguy]

I had a nest just like the one you're talking about ... and same thing, it only took them a few weeks to build it. Actually, it started as a small tennis ball sized one (under our 2nd story eaves) ... which didn't worry me too much. When I looked up a week later, the tennis ball had a long tube sticking down, looked kind of like a candy apple. Two more weeks pass, I look up again and nearly have a heart attack when I see the size of this beastly thing.

I'm not good with ladders, so we had a pest control guy come out for this one. He basically went up (wearing his bee jacket and thick gloves) and used a paint scraper it remove the nest and put it into a garbage bag. I was then instructed to stay away from the area for a while ... but most were apparently still in the nest.

We get really bad wasps & yellow jackets on this property ... probably deal with a half a dozen good sized nests each season. Generally, I mix up a soapy water solution in a garden sprayer and start off with that. Soapy water will drop them to the ground if you hit them in flight, you can spray a wider area (unlike those wasp blasters which have a pretty concentrated spray) and if you hit in the cross fire, it's not going to hurt you.

Once I can get close enough to the nest (the soap having dealt with the airborne ones) - I unload a can of the wasp blaster into the nest.

[. ._]

I kind of like this video. I don't know why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZhd4DMe ... re=related

[Brewguy]

Yep, that's it exactly. I use the cheapest (green) dish soap I can find - usually from the dollar store. The reason I still use a wasp blaster on the nest, is that the poison has a residual effect.

[Siddley Hawker]

Off topic, but a funny story nonetheless. We were in Hot Springs VA once with our G1, parked next to another G1 from Union Camp. The vent for the manual pressurization system is below the cockpit sliding window on the right side of the airplane, a little funnel-shaped opening. There's a plug for it with a remove-before-flight tag, but I don't know of anybody that ever uses it on an overnight. Me and the guy from Union Camp were both doing our walk arounds at the same time, when I heard a yell, followed by a string of profanity. It seems that overnight a little mud-dauber wasp had found the hole on the other airplane, crawled inside and proceeded to make a nest. My friend had peered into the hole and seen something in there, stuck his finger in to feel what it was, and chomp!

ads, like someone noted, have a line of retreat with no obstacles and somebody at a door on red alert. As far as leaving it alone and hoping for the best, that's an option, but remember what I said about being swarmed. After the first frost though, if you wait that long, they become pretty harmless. I cut my own firewood for years, and down in the bush you'd always get few buzzing around but I never had a problem.

[HS-748 2A]

I had the satisfaction this summer, of blasting a wasp nest in the backyard with my 12 GA, loaded with # 9.

I backed up 30' or so, so it would have a nice spread. It was hanging in a tree, over the creek.

It was there one second, and gone the next. Just little shards in the creek;

and two very angry bastards circling around, wondering, "WTF!?" I'd imagine.

Believe it or not though, I had to repeat the process a couple days latter when they rebuilt.

The second salvo must have taken hold, or got the queen, or sent the message, or whatever was required because they didn't come back.

These guys were 'black-jackets', not yellow. Not sure if I'd ever seen them quite like that before.

Terrible year for wasps in my neck of the woods this year. Never seen so many in one summer. Tapered off now though with the cooler WX.

'48

[Phlyer]

I kind of like this video. I don't know why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZhd4DMe ... re=related

"it creates a filem".

[HS-748 2A]

I kind of like this video. I don't know why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZhd4DMe ... re=related

"it creates a filem".

good gawd. Not much doubt we're south of the Mason-Dixon Line....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87UjKCIo8lw&NR=1

[Siddley Hawker]

HS while I was painting the blue on JIN a couple months ago, out in the shed, a wasp flew by and I gave him a shot of blue paint with the airbrush. He flew off with a beautiful blue speed line down the side of the fuselage.

[Strega]

I took care of a nest a couple years back by using a sharp BBQ flipper, and a trash bag.

We got all pissed up, then got the guts to hold the bag under the nest, then I "plucked" the nest from the fence, and into the bag it fell, we quickly closed and tied the bag, and then promptly put it into a trash can!...

Was quite the operation,, too bad we didnt film it

[The Old Fogducker]

good gawd. Not much doubt we're south of the Mason-Dixon Line....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87UjKCIo8lw&NR=1

748:

What a superb find .... she's quite a girl. Now seeing her in a canoe would be a real treat ... and she handles fish too.

Quite an interesting local accent and sentence structure .... almost makes it a requirement to hire a translator to travel with in that area.

But man ... she's nice. Her companions is real "Good Old Boys" ain't they?

OFD