Ground bees

[natdscott]

Had a nest in the garden. One of the strawberry plant holes in the landscape fabric groundcover.

I didn't want to use poison or chemicals in the garden. So I started with various strengths of diluted vinegar poured in the hole. Didn't effect them much.

Made a cool bottle funnel trap and used beer for the bait. Pretty happy to see a couple dozen bees floating, right off the bat. A week later, bees still flying in and out, numbers in the trap about the same.

Said screw it and poured in a few glugs from the gas can. That worked. No flame needed.

Wonder how long and how big of an area might be effected longer term from the gas in the garden?

You'd have been better to light it.

If you "glugged" in less than a cup of gas, that 5 or 6 ounces has enough **** in it to contaminate over 50,000 gallons of water beyond safe limits. Unless you are okay with ball cancer.

No big deal, usually. But it can be.

There are a lot of chemicals we deal with on a regular basis that really are unfu**withable.

 

[Leadeye]

How do you do that?

Usually the first and second week of May you see them foraging for food and nest materials. They are much larger than the regular yellow jacket, make a different sound, and fly in a zig zag pattern close to the ground. We both carry Raid W&H killer and give them a quick zap. It's been a successful strategy, dramatically reduces problems around the house in the late summer and fall.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Usually the first and second week of May you see them foraging for food and nest materials. They are much larger than the regular yellow jacket, make a different sound, and fly in a zig zag pattern close to the ground. We both carry Raid W&H killer and give them a quick zap. It's been a successful strategy, dramatically reduces problems around the house in the late summer and fall.

I see. I need to be more observant, I guess.

 

[spencer rifle]

Just to clarify:
Bees don't nest in the ground (except bumble), are major pollinators, are not native to this continent, usually only defend their hives, and can only sting once.

Yellowjackets nest in the ground, do some pollinating, gather meat (caterpillars, garden pests, your hamburger) to feed the larvae (adults only eat sweet liquids), are native (depending on the species), defend their hives (but as the year gets later they start defending their personal space), and can sting as often as they want.

 

[ancjr]

I've found 6 yellow jacket ground hives this year. We have had bumble bees in the front yard for many many years. Usually get stung several times a year. This past week I got hit right next to my navel while trying to jack a t-post out.

 

[ws6duramax]

There was a guy a few years back that passed from stings from yellow jackets. Him and a hunting partner were moving some ladder stands on the neighboring property to mine and there was nest at the base of the tree. He was stung MANY times and had an allergic reaction (anaphylactic shock) , he was gone in less than 10 minutes! ALWAYS carry an EPI pen if you have any sensitivities to things like that.
I know the other guys on that particular lease haven't been the same since then and for good reason. They were all lifelong friends/buddies. It was truly heartbreaking

 

[printcraft]

We try to kill as many of the queens as possible in the spring, usually get 30-40. .

How do you do that?

Put out some poisoned bud light...

 

[Mgderf]

How do you do that?

Excellent question...

 

[Mgderf]

Usually the first and second week of May you see them foraging for food and nest materials. They are much larger than the regular yellow jacket, make a different sound, and fly in a zig zag pattern close to the ground. We both carry Raid W&H killer and give them a quick zap. It's been a successful strategy, dramatically reduces problems around the house in the late summer and fall.

That's going to be a bit difficult for me.
I have 50 wooded acres to scrutinize.

 

[Leadeye]

That's going to be a bit difficult for me.
I have 50 wooded acres to scrutinize.

This only works around the house where the gardener is working, she gets most of them. Out in the woods I have to depend on the local critters to dig up and destroy the nests, which they do a pretty good job of.

 

[ancjr]

I've heard of using mason jar traps... but I imagine those are pretty messy.....

 

[jamesb]

Dawn dish soap and hot soapy water kills them fast. soapy water in a garden sprayer to coat the hole and knock them out of the sky. I go at night, dump the soap around and in the hole then a 5 gallon bucket of hot soapy water poured down the hole. Repeat if the hole takes the whole bucket before over filling. can be used around gardens and beehives, no nasty left over chemicals in soil.

 

[Michigan Slim]

Dawn works well as jamesb says. It's just not as satisfying as flame and explosives.

 

[tmschuller]

Grandkids were riding around on horses last weekend and one of mares started acting up and kicking and crow hopping around and threw my granddaughter off and it was yellow jackets. My wife was there and both are very allergic to bee stings. Luckily only the horses got it. 15-20 stings on her. The kids were using bareback saddles and the yellow jackets were all over the black pad. Maybe 20 or so son in law was there and got the pad off and stomped on the bees. I got there later and used 8 dust and didn’t find any live ones within 2 days

 

[tmschuller]

Usually the first and second week of May you see them foraging for food and nest materials. They are much larger than the regular yellow jacket, make a different sound, and fly in a zig zag pattern close to the ground. We both carry Raid W&H killer and give them a quick zap. It's been a successful strategy, dramatically reduces problems around the house in the late summer and fall.

I killed this one in the spring.. carb cleaner
It was very large but the thing hanging out of it? It looks like it came from a John Carpenter movie

 

[JTKelly]

Best stuff for those bastages is Sevin Dust. After dark, sprinkle a couple tablespoons into and around the entrance hole. As they come and go they track it in and it kills the ENTIRE colony dead.

Exactly. I just wiped out a couple wasp nest with it yesterday. Wiped out many many yellow jacket holes with it the last 20 years or so.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Exactly. I just wiped out a couple wasp nest with it yesterday. Wiped out many many yellow jacket holes with it the last 20 years or so.

And sometimes you have to get creative with the delivery. I have vinyl siding on my split level house. The design where the top floor is about a foot wider than the bottom floor so there is an overhang. I found a wasp nest in one of the corner voids where the cap insert fell off at the bottom of the corner. The kind of wasp that makes the little dangly 4-10 hole nest that hangs by a thread under overhangs.

So they would fly up in from the bottom and then use their sticky feet to climb up to the 2nd story where the nest was.
I tried making a shelf for them to land on before climbing up so I could put a pile of Sevin on it. They ignored the shelf and kept going direct.

So I bought a 3' section of vinyl tubing and duct taped one end to my compressor blower wand. I used a funnel to drop several tablespoons of dust into the tube.

I then shoved the tube up into the void and squeezed the blower triggger, filling the void with dust. No more wasps.

 

[K_W]

I just cleared a nest last week... place a running shop vac hose next to the hole for a few hours with an inch or two of soapy water in the tank to kill the foragers and guards. Then, a few hours after sundown, set a bug bomb off into the enterance (place it there, dont hold it) to kill the nest workers and queen.

 

[K_W]

Had a nest in the garden. One of the strawberry plant holes in the landscape fabric groundcover.

I didn't want to use poison or chemicals in the garden. So I started with various strengths of diluted vinegar poured in the hole. Didn't effect them much.

Made a cool bottle funnel trap and used beer for the bait. Pretty happy to see a couple dozen bees floating, right off the bat. A week later, bees still flying in and out, numbers in the trap about the same.

Said screw it and poured in a few glugs from the gas can. That worked. No flame needed.

Wonder how long and how big of an area might be effected longer term from the gas in the garden?

Next time just go out at midnight and fill the hole with diatomaceous earth. Death from a thousand microscopic cuts.

 

[Methane Herder]

Doesn't apply to ground bees. My late brother used to eliminate large wasp nests under the eaves of my mom and dad's house with a 03 Springfield. He would go out around dusk, chamber a blank round and hold the rifle so the muzzle was about a foot from the nest. Fireball, shockwave, surviving wasps fall to the ground with no wings (see fireball adjective).
Apply boots to above.

I attribute this sort of behavior to boredom, heat, humidity and some sort of psychoactive gas given off by the August corn in southern Indiana.

MH