# Two questions on getting rid of yellojackets



## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

a ground drench insecticide, foam preferrred


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## HONEYDEW (Mar 9, 2007)

Tell the neighbor how horrible yellow jackets are and you would be willing to kill them for free to save his family, then get a can of Ortho wasp spray and at dark spray the entrance well and no more yellows from that nest....


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

If the neighbor will let you do something w/ them, pour a gallon of HOT soapy water down the hole late in the evening when most of the occupants are home and then cover the hole w/ something which will not allow entrance or escape.

what's the weather like there? Does it get really cold where you are? Around here I usually tell people to wait a cpl more weeks until after we have had a cpl of heavy frosts and then they won't see them again.


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## lakebilly (Aug 3, 2009)

I am amazed @ the number of yellow jackets that frequent my yards, hundreds probably thousands all over my supers set out for my bees to clean. Surprisingly not agressive. I stood over the boxes w/out any gear & crushed & swatted lots of them. I made five YJ traps w/sugar, applecider vinegar,& a banana peel set them out & they are filling up fast when it's warm. I plan to make a bunch of these for springtime deployment in hopes to kill spring queens, & hopefully keep the population down. 
It would seem that the bottles like Snapple that are coned work way better @ drawing them in than flat top. Anyone know why? It also seems that they are drawn to clear plastic???


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Here is how I have seen the pros do it. Wait until after dark, Early morning is even better. Early as in the sun is not up and it is cool outside. You then use a bulb syringe to blow powdered insecticide (fast acting on contact) down into the hole. You want to get the powder on as much of the tunnel as you can so that the yellow jackets will come in contact with it as they try to exit.

I watched a profession do this with a nest I had stuck a digging bar into the day before. I got stung at least 22 times. A day after he was done I went back and finished digging my hole and not one jacket was alive. I kill Yellow Jackets and hornets at work all the time. I am the stinging insect manager for a University. One thing that is common with all types of hornets wasps and such is that you kill the nest only in the dark so everyone is home when you hit it. The Wasp and Hornet spray is one I use all the time. It works very well you just want to make sure everyone is home. It knocks them down on contact so they cannot fly and sting. Very oily and heavy. IT does nto so much kill them instantly as it just coats them and makes them to heavy to fly. they die very soon afterward.


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## Slow Modem (Oct 6, 2011)

Isn't it true that some YJ nests have alternate entrances? Seems you'd have to treat both or block the second one.


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## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

I hit one with starting fluid at night, then added a squirt of fuel and plugged it up. Two days later there was another entrance 2’ away. Hit them again by throwing some Seven down there and they were gone in a couple of days.


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## Robert Brenchley (Apr 23, 2000)

Reduce your entrances and you won't have a problem. Wasps will always be predators, but we make our bees vulnerable by using wide-open entrances which they don't need, and which are hard to defend.


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## virginiawolf (Feb 18, 2011)

I had/have a nest right under my hives that are sitting on blocks above pavers. I was reluctant to use insectide So I tried poring boilingwater and soap with some vinegar in it over the main sight of them. It knocked them back a good bit but it took 2 trys. I wonder how deep and vast the network of nest could be and if I might not need to use even more boiling water or spread out the application of it a bit wider or what not. They're coming out between the pavers so I suppose the paver could be blocking the boiling water anyway. It helped but I'm not positive I finished them off.

If I didn't kill the yellowjacket queen will the nest be right where it is now again in spring?
Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks, VW


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## Robert Brenchley (Apr 23, 2000)

The nests are annual. The queens die off in autumn, and only the young queens survive the winter, to establish new nests next spring. So you're unlikely to have one in the same place two years running. If you do, it won't be the same nest!

This year I had a huge nest in an empty hive, which I left deliberately to see whether they did any harm to the colonies next to them. It's been a really bad year for wasps here due to the warm, dry weather in Aril and May when they were getting established. They did no harm at all, except that I had a lot getting into supers through cracks when I was feeding. My hive entances are slots four inches across and one bee space deep, with nails 9mm apart. Mice don't get in, and they're easily defended; I normally find more dead wasps than bees outside in late summer.


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## pascopol (Apr 23, 2009)

My experience with ground nest of jellow jackets was troublesome.
After my wife got badly stung I tried to kill them by starting fire on the nest.

In few days they came back.

Then I poured a gallon of pool muriatic acid on them, the acidic fog almost choked me to death, but those monsters survived.

Finally I sprayed them with commercial "wasp and hornet' killer.

That stuff killed them off permanently.

I do not see how soapy water would be effective when they survived muriatic acid "treatment".

Any other (effective) "organic" methods?


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Yeah, soapy water! Works great. Being in the construction business, I've had my share of dealing with stinging insects on the job. Wasps, yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets, all get the soapy water treatment.


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## Lost Bee (Oct 9, 2011)

If you know exactly where the nest is. The safest plan of attack is to assault it at night.
Put a coloured plastic bag,etc. (blue or red) over a flash light since bees are attracted to 
white light at night. 

Find the nest and bombard it with Neem oil. They sell it at most gardening centers.
It's very good against all insects your bees included. So just make sure it's only applied
exactly on the yellow jackets nest. Not all over the neighbourhood.

I bet a couple of cups of powdered laundry detergent in a pail of hot water
would do the same. Either way you would clean them up. Dead or alive.


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## mike haney (Feb 9, 2007)

a quart of gasoline poured down the entrance followed by stomping closed the entrance kills all the wasps including the unhatched larvae-its the fumes that do it, thats why you must close it up.


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