Posted on 09/13/2017 11:20:25 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Aggressive yellowjacket populations are booming this year in the Bay Area as reports of complaints about nests hit records in many areas.
For breaking news get our mobile app for free from the Apple app store or the Google Play store. Winter rains produced plenty of insects to eat, which helped wasp nests thrive, insect experts say. Hot September weather, like the Labor Day heat wave, spurred the insects to hunt more aggressively for food, increasing the opportunities for human encounters of a painful kind.
Vector control districts in Santa Clara, Alameda and San Mateo counties have received record numbers of yellowjacket and wasp service requests already this year and more calls are coming in fast.
Contra Costa County is on pace to break its all-time high for yellowjacket service requests of 972 set in 1999.
Public calls for help with yellowjackets have increased 83 percent in Contra Costa County so far this year. The vector district received 858 calls through Labor Day, up from 469 at the same time last year and more than the 744 calls during all of 2016, the district reported.
Lisa Hallahan, an Orinda resident for two decades, was stung a week ago in her side yard after carefully turning on a sp
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
And the Luddites. = AntiFa
They DO hurt like heck. I stopped my ATV right over a nest and got stung several times. IT HURTS. Took care of the nest at sun down.
On occasion I could find their nest just by quietly standing and watching the field. Eventually, I would see some motion and focus on where they were coming from.
I have often thought that a YJ nest must have some odor that you could train a dog to find. Just a thought.
There is a cheap way to get rid of the yellowjackets/meat bees.
Take a white 5 gallon bucket.
Put about 3 inches of water into the bucket. Put DAWN dishwashing soap into the water—after you put the water in. You want the soap to be as much as possible on the top of the water. Stir SLIGHTLY.
Buy a small hunk of liver. (Or a larger hunk & cut it smaller) Run a strong cord thru the liver & hang it from the opposite sides of the pail, with the liver piece JUST ABOVE the water. Don’t touch the water with the liver.
The meat bees will find it, and gorge themselves. Then, they will TRY to take off out of the pail, but they will leave the liver—drop down to gain some altitude with a full belly- and they will hit the soapy water. END OF THEIR FLIGHT. The soap will coat their wings & they are done. Bury or flush bees down toilet.
We used this at a high mountain camp one year when 8 of us went riding. The 5 gallon pail was so busy & so full, that we had to start over with a new pail setup before we went to bed. Couldn’t even guess how many meat bees we drowned that weekend.
Cheap—and easy to keep refilling with water & soap.
There is a cheap way to get rid of the yellowjackets/meat bees.
Take a white 5 gallon bucket.
Put about 3 inches of water into the bucket. Put DAWN dishwashing soap into the water—after you put the water in. You want the soap to be as much as possible on the top of the water. Stir SLIGHTLY.
Buy a small hunk of liver. (Or a larger hunk & cut it smaller) Run a strong cord thru the liver & hang it from the opposite sides of the pail, with the liver piece JUST ABOVE the water. Don’t touch the water with the liver.
The meat bees will find it, and gorge themselves. Then, they will TRY to take off out of the pail, but they will leave the liver—drop down to gain some altitude with a full belly- and they will hit the soapy water. END OF THEIR FLIGHT. The soap will coat their wings & they are done. Bury or flush bees down toilet.
We used this at a high mountain camp one year when 8 of us went riding. The 5 gallon pail was so busy & so full, that we had to start over with a new pail setup before we went to bed. Couldn’t even guess how many meat bees we drowned that weekend.
Cheap—and easy to keep refilling with water & soap.
I allow my barn swallows to nest anywhere the want. They are natures answer to these bastards. I keep a can of wasp spray handy to spray the hives in the rafters but they don’t stand a chance flying around my farm. Those swallows swoop right in a pick them off.
bay area you say?....... Drug induced
Be glad they are yellow jackets and not bald faced wasps which are extremely aggressive and vicious. Don’t ask me how is know....
Wasps and hornets are at times carnivorous. Fall is coming quickly and they know it. Baiting a yellowjacket trap with some apple cider vinegar, a banana peel, and a piece of rotting, stinking meat will have them flying to their capture and ultimate death in very short order.
We were at Hayden Lake last weekend and having breakfast on the deck. It didn’t take but 90 seconds for one of them to find my bacon. Luckily, he didn’t go invite his friends to breakfast and we had only the one guest. Interesting how the smoke was heavy enough to get them out of their nests. We arrived on Weds which was the worst day. It was a lot better by Sat.
There are two yellow jacket nests on the Betsy Crowder Trail at Windy Hill in Portola Valley. The district put up two small “Caution” warning signs, but it looks like a disaster waiting to happen for some poor soul. Those buggers don’t like vibrations and just walking lightly by their nests is troublesome. The district won’t destroy them, I’m sure, because they are “nature.”
Awww....cute...Global Warming causing them to die
Ewwww...hideously ugly, dangerous, threatening, harmful pukes without any friends at all. No mention of GW causing their populations to explode: 
There was a lot of them in the desert out at my place Labor Day weekend. I just hung a strip of bacon over a branch about 30 feet from my camp/cook spot. I was happy, meat bees were happy, the world was at peace... :-)
Foxes and skunks and such will sniff out dig them up to eat.
My sister was riding a horse one day in the woods and it schlonked a foot through the roof of an underground nest. She got off calmly and walked it away. She got stung 60-70 times (in a high cut T) and the horse about 200 (it was foaming at the mouth). She joked about it increasing her bust size about 3X for a few days...
First California had a long drought, and with it a lot of insect populations fell, as food for them fell as well. Now California has been “blessed” recently with a lot more rain, and many insect populations are rebounding. They are rapidly growing and very aggressive in their behavior - as new and rapidly growing populations of insects (or birds) become, when competing for space and food in an area.
Its a very natural happening.
What’s really crazy is both types can trace the source of a projectile back to its origination point up to at least a .22. We learned that the hard way as kids.
I got swarmed once while backpacking, broke open a nest in the ground.
That was memorable.
My choice of motorbike helmet is bright yellow, seems to attract them. I get one down my collar or into my face at least once a year.
Hate.
Not Just the West Coast either.
Two of my normal hiking trails have been closed because of those nasty things!
For an underground yellow jacket nest, set a clear glass bowl upside down over the entrance. That keeps them from roaming. (They are handy for insect control in the garden, btw.)
Then pull off the bowl and dust them after dark.
I cut grass last Saturday and ran into three nests in the ground in one area. I always take Raid hornet/wasp spray with me on the tractor this time of year and look for the little buggers flying in the ground. I hammered them with the raid and took care of them. If I find a big one I wait until dark and then take Styrofoam cup with gas and pour into hole, if I am feeling like having some fun then toss a match into the hole and hear the whoof!
Last year in mid-September I was cutting grass around 9:00pm and it was dark and I felt something hit my leg hard, then hit it again and it hurt and I swatted it and through the distant motion light from the house thought I saw a hornet. Sure enough I had run across a nest in the ground on a hill and couldn’t see the hole. I hammered them the next evening at dark but had some nice welts on my leg for a couple of days.
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