Wasps!


rodger.

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I currently have a basketball sized wasp nest hanging from a tree alongside my driveway.  It's high enough that I can't really address it safely myself, but low enough to be vaguely threatening.  I'm also terrified of bees/wasps.  Planning to just let it die with the cold weather...but I'm replacing a deck on that side of the house this week...pretty nervous about the noise bothering them.  I guess we'll find out.  

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3 hours ago, bgreenb said:

I currently have a basketball sized wasp nest hanging from a tree alongside my driveway.  It's high enough that I can't really address it safely myself, but low enough to be vaguely threatening.  I'm also terrified of bees/wasps.  Planning to just let it die with the cold weather...but I'm replacing a deck on that side of the house this week...pretty nervous about the noise bothering them.  I guess we'll find out.  

I don't think the cold weather is going to do them in. We were out deer hunting one winter and came across a big paper nest hanging in a tree. One of the guys shot the branch off and we carried it home, it looked cool. Once we got it back to the cabin we hung it from the ceiling by the wood stove. The next morning we were greeted by hundreds of the pissed off little beggars. We soaked it with Raid and is still took weeks before they stopped coming out.

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2 hours ago, woodbutcher74 said:

We were out deer hunting one winter and came across a big paper nest hanging in a tree.

I've got a couple of those hanging in my man-fort. the trick is it wait until dusk, cotton ball in the entrance hole, garbage bag over the whole nest, tie it tight to the limb its hanging on and cut the limb off,  put it in the freezer for a couple of weeks. best done in the late fall when most of the wasps are gone.

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I haven't seem many wasps, as in the yellow and black kind since we moved here. We do have plenty of these - 

GettyImages-139289963.thumb.jpg.3eb9d2c746ca6acd5680c24ed7588550.jpg

called tarantula hawks. I only see them when the fruit trees have all ripened because they feed on fermented fruit. They sting tarantulas, paralyzing them, then lay their egg inside. The larvae eats the tarantula from the inside out. They rarely sting people unless they're stepped on or really bothered, but the sting is level 4 - as bad as any insect sting. The recommended treatment is to stop, drop and scream because it hurts so bad that people have been known to knock themselves out running into things in hysterics.

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27 minutes ago, Mick S said:

I haven't seem many wasps, as in the yellow and black kind since we moved here. We do have plenty of these - 

called tarantula hawks. I only see them when the fruit trees have all ripened because they feed on fermented fruit. They sting tarantulas, paralyzing them, then lay their egg inside. The larvae eats the tarantula from the inside out. They rarely sting people unless they're stepped on or really bothered, but the sting is level 4 - as bad as any insect sting. The recommended treatment is to stop, drop and scream because it hurts so bad that people have been know to knock themselves out running into things in hysterics.

Mick this post was talking about wasps not small birds LOL

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9 hours ago, rodger. said:

Uh oh! 

My daughter (6) loves bugs and animals. I think I will need to release them somewhere a long way from my home. I know this seems silly, but she has been following me like a shadow for this whole process to ensure I don't kill any! LOL.

I would kill em all. Those fellows can fly a long time. A mile is not uncommon for them to fly looking for food (according to the interWEBS). I like the rag soaked in turpentine method. Just suck it up in the hose and call it a day.

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1 hour ago, Mick S said:

I haven't seem many wasps, as in the yellow and black kind since we moved here. We do have plenty of these - 

GettyImages-139289963.thumb.jpg.3eb9d2c746ca6acd5680c24ed7588550.jpg

called tarantula hawks. I only see them when the fruit trees have all ripened because they feed on fermented fruit. They sting tarantulas, paralyzing them, then lay their egg inside. The larvae eats the tarantula from the inside out. They rarely sting people unless they're stepped on or really bothered, but the sting is level 4 - as bad as any insect sting. The recommended treatment is to stop, drop and scream because it hurts so bad that people have been know to knock themselves out running into things in hysterics.

Holy F! That thing is scary!

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8 hours ago, wdwerker said:

Give her a thick rubber band to put over her wrist. Tell her to pull it out as far as she can and let it snap. Then ask if the wasps should be allowed to go free and have a chance to do that to her daddy.

If he promises to film it, can we get a vote?

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Do your best to get them all out before you seal the hole. They'll try to get out through any penetration in the living space of the house.

in my last house I skipped that part :0. Sealed the hole. It was opposite my laundry room with a light fixture over the washer with a pull chain. Came down to make coffee next morning and in the kitchen I could here a loud hum coming from the basement.

went down and almost sh&t myself.

the string on the pull chain looked like a thick moving rope. About a 2" thick column of bees.

My reaction would have made a great 3 stooges scene.

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Along the lines of wasps getting into the house, I have had two mice get into my house.  How they got in, I don't know!  I could hear them scratching in the sheetrock in the downstairs den.  The last one got down in the wall near the floor.  I knocked a hole in the wall to get him so I wouldn't have to listen to him for about three or four days.  The little $%^&* got out but I got him with a trap set in the basement.  Sweet revenge!!!

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Along the lines of wasps getting into the house, I have had two mice get into my house.  How they got in, I don't know!  I could hear them scratching in the sheetrock in the downstairs den.  The last one got down in the wall near the floor.  I knocked a hole in the wall to get him so I wouldn't have to listen to him for about three or four days.  The little $%^&* got out but I got him with a trap set in the basement.  Sweet revenge!!!

In the words of Dale Gribble, "there's just not substitute for killing stuff."

 

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I'm not sure leaving them in a bag for a while will do anything.  I realize it's not a wasp, but at work I had put a live tick into a sealed blood tube in order to be able to show my clients what they look like.  This was a tube which is completely air tight, and that damn thing was still alive almost 5 months later.  I don't know what insect respiration involves, but they sure are tough little bastards...

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