FYI:
For yellow jackets in the ground it sometimes works to put a glass jar
or pot over the hole. Because they can see light through the jar they
won't tunnel out but just keep trying to fly through the glass.
Just make sure the neighbor kids don't come to investigate and it has to
be heavy enough so that they can't just crawl under. (The wasps not the
neighbor kids.)
Mark B.

Cam wrote:
Andy Hill wrote:

"Cam" wrote:

I got my wet/dry shop vac and vacuumed up about a gallon of soapy

water

and then set the crevice tool of the vac beside the entrance of the
nest. Over the space of 10 minutes it sucked up every wasp on their

way

in or out of the nest. As soon as they were flying within 5 inches

of

the nozzle they would dissappear down the black hole. I let the vac

sit

on the deck for a few more minutes to make sure the wasps had

drowned

in the soapy water


You probably should toss some wasp nerve gas into the hole now. I've

used the

shopvac method in the past, and while it does a great job of knocking

down the

worker population, it doesn't do a thing for the queen, the

newly-hatched

workers (who are still hanging out on the nest) or the pupae.

You'll soon have

a thriving nest going again unless you do something about those guys

and gals.

You are right, the nest started to make a come back. But I wanted to
avoid using any pesticides if I could. Commercial hornet blasters
contain a chemical that is very toxic to fish, even in very small
doses. Why take the risk?
I bought a bottle of "Ant & Roach" powder (80% diatomaceous earth, no
poison) and shot puffs of the stuff into the holes in the bricks. After
a couple of minutes I had blocked all the entrances completely with the
fine powder. It is now 4 weeks later and the holes are still blocked
and I'm claiming victory.

Cam