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#1
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OT Yellowjacket Shop Vac
My back yard is swarmed with yellowjacket wasps every August and
September. It can make it tough to sit by the pond with a drink or eat dinner on the deck. They are attracted by the flowering silverlace vines on the fence and deck railing. I have set traps for them, put out borax ant-bait and swatted them with no real effect on the population. I never used a hornet blaster because the poison in those is extremely toxic to fish (and the rest of the world). Rather than cut down the vines I set out to take the battle directly to the wasps themselves. I found their nest, it was actually in a hole in the bricks of my house. 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 and then emptied the contents out into some fine netting. I had killed almost 2 cups full of yellowjackets in the space of 10 minutes without poison and never got stung. I'll continue with the traps but any time I find a wasp nest I'm going to get the shop vac out again. It really worked. Cam |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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 |
#4
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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 |
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