I hate wasps - it's total war.

[bearfoot]

been alot of small wasps back yard and deck, deck is 18 ft. off the ground. the other morning makeing coffee pushed up the window blind, behind the top of the blind a large black wasp, by the time i got a wet paper towel it was down the window. it looked almost 2" long. lucky i grabbed it 1 st. try w/ the wet towel. was going smash it in the towel, deceided just to take it outside. enjoyed the coffee after i checked the window again. got stung in the neck and hand last year walking into the shed.

 

[Llance]

Do not kill a wasp unless you can do so, so they can not come back to sting you. When you kill a wasp they leave a pheromone which alerts the rest of the nest and the follow on attack will be as many as can get to you in the shortest amount of time. Also if you see a paper wasp nest in a tree and want to shoot into it do so but as soon as you shoot move about 40 feet away off to the side. The wasps in the nest will attack the location the shot came from and will continue in that direction until they find you or they determine you are not there any longer. They don't think to look for you off to the side of the "trail".

 

[Gman686]

For the user that said brake clean works well, ever try it on tics? My co-worker and I have been having the discussion of brake cleaning some tics to see if they'll die.

Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.

 

[Chukar60]

Years ago we were riding ATV’s and I had left my goggles at home. Put on my sunglasses and off we went.
On the return to the trucks I was coming across a meadow and a wasp hit my forehead and fell between the sunglasses and my face.
Little monster tattooed the area around my eye 4 or 5 times before I could grab the glasses and toss them off.
Three hours later I looked like Charlie Brown. Round head and swollen ears and my eye was swollen shut.
Since then it has been all out war.
When we first moved to our current home there were nests everywhere. I got stung several time. Then one day I noticed they seemed very attracted to our elm tree. Sprayed that tree with Malathion and within a week my wasp problem was all but gone. I spray the tree every year in the late summer.
Still get a few small nests and as one poster stated, brake or carb cleaner does a great job on them.

 

[growr]

What usefull purpose does a wasp serve in nature, I can't think of any....same with skunks.

Randy

 

[LVSteve]

What usefull purpose does a wasp serve in nature, I can't think of any....same with skunks.

Randy

Cricket Hunters, Spider Wasps, and various Thread Waisted Wasps keep us from being knee deep in all sorts of other bugs in this state.

 

[waffles]

**** wasps. Last summer I commuted by bike (pre-pandemic sometime) I got two down the front of my bike jersey. Got stung once in the nip and a handful of other times in the belly. Nothing less dignified than a man in bike clothes panicing and slapping his nips and belly as he coasts down a hill.

 

[hopimedic]

Super soaker filled with instant kill wasp spray! Like a flame thrower without burning anything down. Make sure the spray is banned in Kalifornia to guarantee effectiveness!!

 

[BigBoy99]

I find that night attacks on the nest are the best. The maximum number of the wasps will be in the nest "sleeping" so a night attack will kill the most and lessen the chances of being stung. I soak the nests with the spray and then remove the nest the next morning.

 

[soFlaNative]

We used to get mud dauber wasp nests on the ceiling of our front porch and under our eaves. When we had them painted, the painter asked us if we wanted him to mix some insecticide into the paint. He said it would stop the nest-building. We were skeptical, but agreed to the insecticide-laced paint. The painter was right. It's been about 10 years since he painted, and we haven't had any nests since.

I know for a fact there is a shade of blue one can paint the underside of porch and carport roofs that will discourage mud daubers. Apparently the wasps only see what they think is sky and don't build.


I worked at a golf course in my late teens, noticed a paper nest the size of a dinner plate sucked up under a cart charger overhang. An alcohol soaked rag around a sand rake handle with a light dozens of wasps all smacked to the ground sounding like a bag of spilled beans.
I can still hear the furious buzzing of all those wasps pumping their little burnt stubs before I BBQ's them with add'l alcohol and the torch.

 

[OLDSTER]

From late June thru fall, I have an ongoing war with hornets around here. I have an arsenal of weapons to use; but my favorite is Black Flag aerosol. I'm able to knock them out of the air; but the only way to get the upper hand is to find their nest. The toughest to find is a nest in the ground in the woods around here. I've been stung so many times over the years that I believe I've developed a degree of immunity to the sting; hurts like crazy for a while, but I no longer show any sign on my skin except a small red spot.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

Hornets kill and eat flies. They are very mild mannered unless you provoke them, then it's all out war.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

 

[ko41]

I have a lot of these around the yard this year. They are digging holes in the ground and filling them with cicadas. It's a little freaky when they come buzzing by you with their cargo.

KO

 

[Llance]

Those are females and they lay their eggs on the cicada for the young to eat when they hatch.

 

[67tempest]

My sisters mastiff dug up a ground hornets nest once in the yard and they attacked him. He was covered in hornets and running through the bushes trying to scrape them off. They were finally able to corral him and sprayed him down with a hose to wash off the hornets. He collapsed and they had to take him to the vet, he was given a shot of something to counteract the venom. The vet told my sister that if he hadn't been such a big dog, around 200 pounds, the sting's would have killed him.

 

[M29since14]

Kill them now and destroy/cover their nest now or you’ll soon have even more. Those things are huge! Don’t believe I’ve seen a hornet that big here in Indiana, but they’re probably here somewhere.

 

[bgrafsr]

Got swarmed by a bunch of red wasps this morning after I pulled into the garage. I'd gotten out and dropped the tailgate to let Daisy out when they hit me from behind. Being a deep water Baptist we don't dance, but I put on some moves that would make any Time Square street dancer grin with envy.

I was stung four times, twice on the back of the neck, once on my shoulder and then again on the back of my right arm just above the elbow. As I ran out into the yard wailing and flailing to get away from them, I turned and saw over a dozen on the brick wall. After the attack died down I watched and could see them coming and going between the aluminum siding and the bricks at about the height of the top of broom handle, which I noted for future reference after I took care of these stings.

I'm semi-allergic to insect stings and bites. They're not deadly to me, but I do usually swell up more than a typical person might, although the effects usually do not last more than 45 minutes to an hour. Because of this, we keep a topical medication handy to put on bites and stings, so Mrs. Faulkner applied that since I could feel the stings but not see them. I swallowed a couple of benadryl tablets.

I grabbed a can of wasp spray off the shelf and went back outside to conduct total war on these wasps. I went out the back door and circled around and could still see them milling about on the brick wall so I slowly eased up to within range of the wasp spray which dispersed a foam agent out to about 10 yards. I took out the majority of them with the first one second burst. Then I went over and perched on the tailgate and popped them one at a time as the came out from behind the siding, or as others came in to land. By the time I stopped seeing any movement I killed around 30 or more wasps.

After that, I went out to the shop and pulled my portable pressure sprayer off the shelf along with some Dawn dishwashing liquid and mixed up a batch of homemade wasps spray. This being total war, I spent the next hour going all round the house, around and under the deck, and then back out around the shop spraying all the wasps and any nests I saw. I only used about half of the spray, so I have it set aside in the garage for quick access in case there are any lingerers.

Wow!!!!!!! You can actually park your truck in the garage?
And on top of that, it looks neat and clean. I'm envious.

 

[TexasArmed]

I really hate wasp hoppers too. Hornets are more dangerous.
Had a friend shoot the nest with a 22 once from a good distance
and I outrun him, he got stung and I did not.

I am learning from Google that Migrant Wasps are not bad <sarcasm> but Biker Wasps are bad. Fact checkers jump in there if its migrants I notice.

Wasps are the reason I never leave my windows cracked here
in Texas.

 

[slickracer]

I find brake cleaner to be effective but for the very hearty ones I revert to 2+2 Gum Cutter.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

What is a "ground hornet?"

I am familiar with bumblebees and yellow jackets which nest in the ground.

Have a blessed day,

Leon