underground yellow jackets don't want to die

[stoveliker]

So I have an apparently big yellow jacket nest underground. Near a trampoline and the place where my son plays/practices baseball.
The hole is 2x3 inches and a lot are flying.
So far no stings, but I need this one gone. It's too close to where kids (and neighbors kids) are playing. Balls end up near it etc.

I tried spraying it in evenings, twice. Lots of the foam stuff, in there etc.
No luck.
Then I emptied 2/3 of a bottle of dish soap and let the garden hose go for a few minutes.
No luck.

I prefer no gasoline etc.

We used to have (on the other side of the Atlantic) some powder we would put near the entrance, with the insects tracking it inside, killing the next (particularly useful for in-wall nests).

There are some things on Amazon, but I'm not sure how bad they'd be for me (or my garden), and how well they work.

@EatenByLimestone
Would diatomaceous earth work? (They say it works against ants, but a mechanical (abrasive) method seems unlikely to work on larger yellow jackets and a large nest at that.)

What else would you advice?

 

[Pinesmoke]

When looking for this they talked about dry ice. The CO2 kills them.

The go to is

Prallethrin dust.​

I'm fighting a big nest my self right now. Killed a bunch of it with spray foam last night. It needs more work.

 

[begreen]

Here is a trick that works. Take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it 3/4s full of water. Put it on a level surface near the nest after dark. Take a 3 or 4" wide plank and smear a glob of cat food in the center. Place this board, upside down centered on the bucket so that the cat food side is facing downward toward the water. Put a stone on top to keep it in place. The yellowjackets will go for the food and then drop off as they attempt to fly with a fat belly. This trap can catch hundreds passively.

 

[stoveliker]

Hm, interesting approach.
I was unaware that the flight kinetics of these insects would be so significantly affected by having a full stomach.

 

[begreen]

It could be that they just drop down first to clear the board. I posted a picture of a bucket in action that was shared in a local garden forum.

 

[stoveliker]

The big question is whether it kills the queen - obviously not directly so, but eventually due to no workers left.
If 1% of workers are left (50 or so), would they first take care of the queen?
If so, it's decreasing nuisance (which is fine), but given its location I wish to eradicate this nest. (The problem is of course that in other locations I don't kill them, leading to more queens and more nests...)

 

[EatenByLimestone]

DE will not work. It will probably take out the first 50 or so after the abrasive starts to irritate and dry them out, but they’ll snowplow it out of the way so the following ones aren’t hurt. By now, a yellow jacket nest has multiple queens laying eggs.

If the cat food thing doesn’t work, call a local pest control company.

Ground nests are tough. Often, we have to hit them twice to take care of them. What can happen this late in the year is you can knock out all of the adults in the nest, including the queen (s), and the eggs hatch out and restart the colony.


A fun story, maybe 10 years ago, the Friday before Labor Day weekend, I had a bald faced hornet (a different wasp) nest added on at the end of the day. I stopped, treated the nest and killed the adults. I scraped the nest off the garage and tossed it in the 5 gallon bucket I kept in the back of the truck for such things. I then drove the half mile home, locked my truck, and was off for 3 days. Tuesday morning I opened the back of my truck at my first stop to a bunch of bald faced hornets flying around.

They’ll keep hatching out for about 2 weeks. That’s why we do the 2nd visit on void and ground nests.

The way we hit them is to inject a gas into the hole to kill the adults. That gas will last about an hour. We then inject a dust in there to knock out the returning foragers and the hatch outs. Pesticides don’t last long with ground contact. They’ll most likely need to be reapplied in a couple weeks to make sure the nest is dead.

 

[stoveliker]

ok.
Thanks.

 

[Pinesmoke]

DE will not work. It will probably take out the first 50 or so after the abrasive starts to irritate and dry them out, but they’ll snowplow it out of the way so the following ones aren’t hurt. By now, a yellow jacket nest has multiple queens laying eggs.

If the cat food thing doesn’t work, call a local pest control company.

Ground nests are tough. Often, we have to hit them twice to take care of them. What can happen this late in the year is you can knock out all of the adults in the nest, including the queen (s), and the eggs hatch out and restart the colony.


A fun story, maybe 10 years ago, the Friday before Labor Day weekend, I had a bald faced hornet (a different wasp) nest added on at the end of the day. I stopped, treated the nest and killed the adults. I scraped the nest off the garage and tossed it in the 5 gallon bucket I kept in the back of the truck for such things. I then drove the half mile home, locked my truck, and was off for 3 days. Tuesday morning I opened the back of my truck at my first stop to a bunch of bald faced hornets flying around.

They’ll keep hatching out for about 2 weeks. That’s why we do the 2nd visit on void and ground nests.

The way we hit them is to inject a gas into the hole to kill the adults. That gas will last about an hour. We then inject a dust in there to knock out the returning foragers and the hatch outs. Pesticides don’t last long with ground contact. They’ll most likely need to be reapplied in a couple weeks to make sure the nest is dead.

Bald face hornets, they love to nest under my porch roof. Nasty little suckers. I have European hornets the size of my index finger always floating around. Haven't found their home, don't want to.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

If they aren’t aggressive, I’d leave them alone, lol. Most of the time, they don’t get bad until the first frost, when they start to starve. This is early late September, early October here.

The scariest ones for the customer that were called to are the ones that eat through the drywall into a bedroom. Undoubtedly, people come home to find 400 yellow jackets in a child’s bedroom at 6pm on a Friday. That’s an expensive call.

I suppose the ones you find mowing the lawn are scary too.

 

[stoveliker]

I never find them when mowing. The problem is they find me...

 

[Pinesmoke]

I never find them when mowing. The problem is they find me...

They're sneaky like that.

 

[Pinesmoke]

If they aren’t aggressive, I’d leave them alone, lol. Most of the time, they don’t get bad until the first frost, when they start to starve. This is early late September, early October here.

The scariest ones for the customer that were called to are the ones that eat through the drywall into a bedroom. Undoubtedly, people come home to find 400 yellow jackets in a child’s bedroom at 6pm on a Friday. That’s an expensive call.

I suppose the ones you find mowing the lawn are scary too.

The last nest was right in front of the doors coming out of our bedroom. I was walking in and saw what looked like chaff on the door mat and though the WTH.
I have pressure treated wood to keep the wood bees away and thought it was strange. Looked up and was staring into the hole in the nest.

Aggressive or no they were wayyyy too close for comfort using that door all the time.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Yeah, if they’re in your normal path it won’t end well. I’ve had guys stung by the BFH through a canvas bee suit.

 

[stoveliker]

So, no dust or powder from r consumers here that works @EatenByLimestone and that doesn't pose an inordinate hazard to me?

 

[Pinesmoke]

Yeah, if they’re in your normal path it won’t end well. I’ve had guys stung by the BFH through a canvas bee suit.

I understand they "hit like a baseball bat" from the locals.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I feel your pain @stoveliker .

Two Saturdays ago I was string trimming an area between my mother’s house and the new construction where we are planning to move shortly, and I went over a nest in tall grass. I dropped the trimmer and ran, but it took a while for me to get clear. I got about two dozen stings with lots of pain and swelling but thankfully no vomiting or headaches which I have had in the past from hornet stings. We have not been able to deal yet with that nest because our bee suit is in storage, though we are planning to retrieve it as soon as possible.

In the meantime there is another yellow jacket nest in the ground near the front corner of my mother’s house. That one we can see the opening, and a few weeks ago I had sprayed it from a distance with spray that is supposed to keep working for four weeks after application. I may not have sprayed enough, but it had no effect that I could tell. I repeated the spray about a week ago, and it looked as busy as ever the next morning.

In a somewhat desperate attempt, I found a soda can in some recycling, and I poured in a fair amount of a borax ant bait I use with some success on ants and tossed it near the hole. I don’t know if the yellow jackets ate it, and I don’t know if they are actually susceptible to borax in the same way that ants are, but I do know that the nest has not had any activity that I could see today after several days of that can being near its entrance.

@EatenByLimestone , do you know anything about borax and yellow jackets? Is the can of ant bait just a red herring, and the spray probably did the work even though it didn’t appear to at first? If we can get our bee suit to have some protection to approach the nest, what do you recommend? Like stoveliker’s, this nest is too close to the play and walking area around the house for us to ignore it.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

So, no dust or powder from r consumers here that works @EatenByLimestone and that doesn't pose an inordinate hazard to me?

I don’t know any consumer products, lol. I’d check what’s available at Home Depot. I know the off the shelf ant baits work well, but haven’t tried any bee products.

 

[stoveliker]

Okay. I did, only some powder for over plants (smaller insects) or sprays. The latter work well on exposed nests but evidently this nest is not getting enough.

I'll try the bucket trick in combination with a borax mix I found online; folks mix it with a can of tuna (similar bait as the cat food).

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I feel your pain @stoveliker .

Two Saturdays ago I was string trimming an area between my mother’s house and the new construction where we are planning to move shortly, and I went over a nest in tall grass. I dropped the trimmer and ran, but it took a while for me to get clear. I got about two dozen stings with lots of pain and swelling but thankfully no vomiting or headaches which I have had in the past from hornet stings. We have not been able to deal yet with that nest because our bee suit is in storage, though we are planning to retrieve it as soon as possible.

In the meantime there is another yellow jacket nest in the ground near the front corner of my mother’s house. That one we can see the opening, and a few weeks ago I had sprayed it from a distance with spray that is supposed to keep working for four weeks after application. I may not have sprayed enough, but it had no effect that I could tell. I repeated the spray about a week ago, and it looked as busy as ever the next morning.

In a somewhat desperate attempt, I found a soda can in some recycling, and I poured in a fair amount of a borax ant bait I use with some success on ants and tossed it near the hole. I don’t know if the yellow jackets ate it, and I don’t know if they are actually susceptible to borax in the same way that ants are, but I do know that the nest has not had any activity that I could see today after several days of that can being near its entrance.

@EatenByLimestone , do you know anything about borax and yellow jackets? Is the can of ant bait just a red herring, and the spray probably did the work even though it didn’t appear to at first? If we can get our bee suit to have some protection to approach the nest, what do you recommend? Like stoveliker’s, this nest is too close to the play and walking area around the house for us to ignore it.

I’ve never read anything on borax and wasps. Maybe it works on them. If I remember correctly with ants, it interferes with energy absorption. It causes them to starve. Maybe it does the same with wasps. Borate salt is effective for wood boring insects like termites.

Boron is an odd mineral. It’s a necessary micronutrient, but too high a dose is deadly.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’ve been called to houses that have done some interesting things against wasps. I’ve seen wet and dry vacuums sucking them up as they leave the nest, and the most creative, a bug zapping light placed in the path they were taking as they exited the nest. That was working really well!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I understand they "hit like a baseball bat" from the locals.

My business partner looked like Shreck for about a week.

 

[stoveliker]

I've worked with boron hydride. Nasty stuff (high vapor pressure, decomposes, and absorption thru the skin if I remember correctly).

The shop vac without filter and with water in the can I know but it won't kill the queens. And I don't have a bee suit to sit next to it, and that'll be an issue for returning ones.

 

[Pinesmoke]

I may have to try the bucket trap if this nuke fails. They gotta go.

If they weren't right up against a tree I'd go old school on them. Diesel and a match.

 

[brenndatomu]

So, no dust or powder from r consumers here that works @EatenByLimestone and that doesn't pose an inordinate hazard to me?

We've successfully used Sevin dust on 'em...they were in a large crack about 10' up in a concrete structure...we shoved a piece of rag in a piece of 1/2" PVC conduit, loaded dust on top, another rag to keep dust in, stuck the conduit in the crack and used a portable compressed air tank and a blow gun in the conduit to launch its load into the crack...worked great.