Bees

[MountainStoveGuy]

I say get a flame thrower, i see them at surplus stores now and then.
Elk, when i was building my house, i was up 30' on scaffolding when they came out of the wall and stung the living crud out of me. Your right, its hard to keep calm and not make the fall.

Hmm...Good plan MSG...A flame thrower under 4 cords of wood sitting on pallets. With another 8 cords sitting within 2 feet. It sure would be spectacular "Uhhh well Mr Fire marshal....I was just killing some yellow jackets....Sorry I set Hyde Park on fire. Hell, the presidential home has had a couple fires anyway...It's an opportunity to modernize!"

i didnt metion that you should keep the garden hose close?

 

[wg_bent]

Uhh, no...you missed the fire hose. ;-)

 

[mtarbert]

Being a painter.....I always tuck my pants into my socks.......except the one time yellow jackets made it up my paints and came too close to stinging Mike jr. and the twins........
Mike

 

[HarryBack]

So what is the secret with the JOY?

I'm going to venture a guess, and say that any liquid detergent will work. What the JOY! does is it acts as a surfactant.

Ok. I know a couple of you are going 'speak english, please.' right now, so let me back up & explain.

When you spray a bug with water, the water beads up on the bug because the bug's chittin is water repellent. like oil, or a good house paint.

What any soap does is it gets water to mix with stuff it normally can't, such as oil. That is (pretty much) the definition of 'surfactant'.

So what happens when you spray the bug with the soapy water is that the water spreads out and coats the bug evenly, getting into it's air intakes.

And the bug drowns.



Yes, I simplified a little, but the stuff I left out is really not relevent to the discussion.

Yup....surfactant is actually short for Surface Active Agent. It quite simply changes the surfact tension of the liquid its mixed into.

 

[ourhouse]

Last year I about 95' in the air hanging off our crane takeing down a very large pine in Wrentham, I was having operator boom me down to set the sling I went right into a white faced hornets nest. Which was about the size of a basketball!! FUN. After I finally got the crane operator to put me down, I got luckey and only got stung about 10 times. I stabed myself with an epi pen and off to the hospital we went. I dont like bees in trees very much.

 

[suematteva]

I was raised on a Christmas tree farm in upstate New York, and every summer I joined the crew trimming the trees. Every summer I ran into white faced hornets that had made nests in the trees, and every summer I was stung.

It was worse when taking the Gravely up and down between the rows.

Coaster was it that farm around Paul smiths?

 

[AKFireMan]

We have had a terrible time with yellow jackets this year. In our city alone we have had 6 people die from yellow jacket stings. They are everywhere. I have been stung 4 or 5 times this myself. They seem to have cycles and every 5 or 6 years there seems to be an extraordinary amount around. Went up the river fishing the other day and I counted around 30 basketball sized nest just along the riverbank.

 

[Corie]

Coaster

Tell me it was a Model L gravely? I have so many good memories of riding my grandfathers '42 Model L. That tractor ran from the day he bought it in 1942 until the day he sold it in 2001. We used it for EVERYTHING from cultivating the garden to hauling wood and cutting the lawn.

What a beast it was. I would love to find another one- Unfortunately with his arthritis it became too hard for him to yank on the leather strap 5 or 6 times to get her running. We went out and bought an agway lawn tractor :-(

 

[tradergordo]

Another easy and cheap way to destroy a nest/hive is just to pour a cup of gasoline on it. Aim for the opening but try to soak the nest and not the ground or anything else. Gasoline is EXTREMELY toxic to bees and they will all die including those returning to the nest.

Not sure if you want to throw gas on your woodpile though
(and no, I didn't say to LIGHT it! The gas will evaporate on its own)

But as others mentioned, leave the "good" bees alone. I actually started raising mason bees this year to pollinate my apple trees. Also had a surprise swarm of honey bees this year which I gave to a local bee keeper.