Hornets' nest

[Maylar]

I came home from work last night and found this thing in the lawn next to my driveway. Seems we had some wind residual from Jose and the small tree branch broke.

The thing is bigger than a basketball, and home to these critters -

White faced hornets. Swell.

My research says that they're beneficial - they eat yellow jackets and other bugs, and pollinate flowers. The weather is changing here and they'll die off at the first frost, except for the queen who lives on to spawn the next generation. I'm kinda thinking I should move the hive to a safe location in the woods and let them survive. Anything that eats yellow jackets is a friend of mine. But if approached, these guys get very defensive of their queen and a few hundred of them would be rather scary.

It can't stay where it is. How should I deal with this?

 

[RedlegEd]

Anything that eats yellow jackets is a friend of mine. But if approached, these guys get very defensive of their queen and a few hundred of them would be rather scary.
It can't stay where it is. How should I deal with this?

+1 about Yellow Jackets. Good on you for thinking about a solution that preserves the hive/nest. I share your concern about a snotload of angry hornets coming out to protect their queen. If it were me, I'd wait until after dark (when most of these types of critters are less active,) and see if you could carefully put the nest in a 5 gal bucket or box w/lid and move it carefully to the woods. The trick will be to get the lid off and nest out without creating a dangerous situation for yourself. Good luck on whatever you decide to do. Ed

 

[wyowolf]

Flamethrower...

 

[Dimax]

Night fall, Gas and a match.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Doing things at the cool of night is definitely the way to go.

Buckets not a bad idea, but not knowing how aggressive they are I'd be tempted to get in touch with local beekeepers who will have all the kit to handle it and will be rather more sympathetic to your situation than the flamethrower brigade....

 

[HopGobbler]

Kill it with fire.... I wouldn't move that thing

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

I'd be careful. I guess if you got that close to them you may be ok. However, I was working by my car one day and a nest was a good 20' away. I'm pretty sure that's what they looked like. My encounter was territorial. They were pelting me before I could figure out what was going on. Luckily most of them stuck to my clothes but I still got a good dozen stings. Not that bad but I was running away and the f*ckers were chasing me. Wear good clothing ;-)

I won't say what the final solution was but I won Might have scared the neighbors but I won.

 

[lump42]

If you try to move it, do it at night, don't hold the flashlight (they'll swarm towards the light when the nest is agitated). Then roll the nest gently onto an old sheet or tarp, slowly and gently cover it, and use that to carry into the woods. Be sure to wear long sleeves, pants, shoes, leather gloves, hat. Duct tape the ends of pants and shirt sleeves.

OR you could contact your local beekeepers association and see if there is a member near by that would be willing to done their suit and move the nest for you. http://ctbees.org

 

[triethylborane]

OR you could contact your local beekeepers association and see if there is a member near by that would be willing to done their suit and move the nest for you. http://ctbees.org

This or call the nearest university extension. They can get you to someone who wants the insects for research or whatever. I had a giant swarm of bees in Hawaii a few years back and the U of HI had a prof that wanted them, he came out fast with a few students and collected the bees. I have some pics at home, pretty cool.

 

[Jbrown57]

These guys are bad news.
be extremely careful, you DO NOT want to tangle with them
either call the nearest university or extension agency or torch it.
remember no good deed goes unpunished.....

 

[schematix]

These bastards have no concern for your safety, i'd say let 'em have it.

I'd arm myself with 2 cans of wasp/hornet spray and wouldn't stop until my clip is emptied :rockin:

 

[KayaBrew]

These guys are bad news.
be extremely careful, you DO NOT want to tangle with them
either call the nearest university or extension agency or torch it.
remember no good deed goes unpunished.....

100++++!!

Ever hear the phrase "Madder than a hornet"? Whitefaced hornets are the worst of the worst!

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Fling it into a neighbors lawn, advertise on Craigslist as 'new tetherball, ball', dress as a wasp in order to infiltrate the nest, gain their trust, become the leader and be able to use an angry swarm on your enemies on command...

Or just nuke it, we used to come across yellow jacket nests quite frequently while fighting wildfires and I have forever hated anything that resembles them!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Make a million bucks on YouTube. Put your ding ding in it.

 

[day_trippr]

That's one truly nasty strain of bug.

I watched one take down a full size dragon fly (not a damsel) on my deck, and what it did to that dragon was full-on freak show material that ended with that wee beastie flying off with the dragon's entire thorax...

Then I saw the same thing happen again a week later.
Apparently it's a thing

I'd pour enough gasoline on it to be seen from the ISS, and light that sucker

Cheers!

 

[Miraculix]

Try to talk to the closest bee keeper in your area, offer him a few home brews and let him do the relocation job! He has the right cloths for this!

Thumbs up for the plan to safe them!

 

[jwelch1103]

One hornet is a pain, a hive full of them is quite very dangerous, if provoked. Laying on the ground like that makes it only a matter of time before that hive feels provoked. The balance of nature will not be affected if you destroy this hive.

Get some high quality wasp/hornet killer, the best in my experience contain permethrin in addition to other insecticides. Wait until dusk (or dawn) and hose down the main entrance way.

If there is a University near you with an entomology college they may buy the dead nest from you for studying.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

As good as your intentions are, I think a successful move of the hive is a lost cause. Those hives are rather fragile & it will likely break into several pieces in the process. It's already damaged & likely won't be able to withstand any more damage.

I've tried moving hives that were completely intact & they ended up falling apart, even though I was very careful & gentle. If you're set on trying to save the hive, wait till full dark & use a flat shovel to scoop it up. Have an accomplice cover the hive & shovel with a plastic trash bag & carefully walk it to where you want it, have your accomplice very gently remove the bag & very gently ease what's left of the hive off the shovel, and run. Leave the bag, it's likely got hornets in it.
Good luck, GF.

 

[Maylar]

I absolutely hate yellow jacket wasps, and from what I've read they are the favorite meal of the white face. There were no yellow jackets in my yard this year, and I think I can thank the hornets for that - thus my desire to preserve them.

However, I think GF is correct in that the chances of relocating this hive are slim to none. It fell from quite a height and it's broken. The bees that were around it in the morning were moving real slow, this is their last hurrah before winter. I can't even be sure that the queen survived. So, a couple cans of wasp spray is in their future.

 

[triethylborane]

Livestream is now necessary. It will be amazing or boring.

 

[Miraculix]

I absolutely hate yellow jacket wasps, and from what I've read they are the favorite meal of the white face. There were no yellow jackets in my yard this year, and I think I can thank the hornets for that - thus my desire to preserve them.

However, I think GF is correct in that the chances of relocating this hive are slim to none. It fell from quite a height and it's broken. The bees that were around it in the morning were moving real slow, this is their last hurrah before winter. I can't even be sure that the queen survived. So, a couple cans of wasp spray is in their future.

Or just wait till winter really hits and relocate then when none of them is able to move.

 

[yourlastchance89]

The fact that you got close enough to comfortably lay a measuring tape by it and take a pic I would gamble means the nest is pretty much toast anyway. Might as well do it a favor and put it out of its misery in the most glorious way possible. A video would be appreciated on here as well

 

[z-bob]

Are they in a location where you can just leave them alone? Winter is not that many weeks away. Maybe move it the morning of the first hard freeze when they are all immobile.

If you want to kill them, the thing to use is Sevin dust. Make a blowpipe from a length of 1/2" PVC water pipe or electrical conduit. (I put an elbow fitting on the end) Put a tablespoon or so of Sevin dust in the end, ease the end of the pipe near the opening of the nest (do this at twilight) and puff the dust into the nest and run. Sevin is not nearly as fast acting as permethrin, but that's what you want so it kills them all.

 

[Maylar]

Unfortunately they're in a spot that's close to people and in a direct path of one of my cars. Not to mention the lawn care guy would freak out. Otherwise I'd leave them alone until winter.

 

[triethylborane]

apidae pics

on schofield barracks, called UoH, prof of entomology fast as hell:

at a colleagues home, all of a sudden the bees swarmed to this tree, lame pics because we were corralling the kiddos:

 

[Maylar]

Final update -

Relocation wasn't gonna happen. The hive residents weren't gonna let me get that close. Plan B - waited till night and hosed 'em down with a big can of wasp spray. I could see that the spray wasn't penetrating so I took a garden hoe and gave the nest a good whack to open it up.

They were very unhappy about that. Luckily they went for the big spotlight on my garage and not for me (I ran like hell lol). Thanks for the tip of not holding a flashlight. A few minutes later I emptied the rest of the death spray on the nest. Overnight the wind blew the nest apart and spread it around my yard, and inspecting the remains I found what looked like a couple hundred corpses laying about. I escaped without a single sting.

Hope I don't regret this next year, and get yellow jackets instead. They suck.

 

[Punity]

They all suck death to all non bees!!!

 

[applescrap]

Flamethrower, haha, love it. I'm glad you worked it out. it was cool of you to try and think about saving them. Sometimes you just got to do what you got to do and I think you did what you had to do here. We use these yellow things that we bought at Home Depot for yellow jackets and they work really well. We just keep rebuying the the cotton balls that go inside it. They work very well.

 

[KayaBrew]

In case you don't know how terrifying and aggressive white face hornets are, watch some of this:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T81lZX47Ukk[/ame]

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

That was pretty much me except for no protection. The only thing that saved me was they just landed on my clothes jamming away on the cloth trying to sting me while I squashed them. Flames were my revenge.