Yes, Caller, Those Are Yellow Jackets. You May Kill Them.

Posted by liz on September 26, 2010

As I was saying yesterday, I get a lot of calls about bees.

And, as I was saying yesterday (or was I?), I’ve decided to say “yes,” even when people call not about swarms but about bees living in their homes or in other structures. I will say “yes” and then I will figure out a way to get those bees out of there…and into my beeyard.

Thankfully, someone over on Beemaster.com suggested that she gets so many calls about bees which end up being calls about yellow jackets or wasps or hornets that she asks her callers to send pictures of their insects.

So, that’s what I now do. I say something like, “Before we discuss your options about how to handle those bees in your house, I’d like for you to send a picture of them to me so I can figure out what we’re dealing with.” I ask them to send their pictures to my email address or to my cell phone.

Here are a few of the pictures I got last week. Interestingly, once these callers take a picture of these insects and then look closely at the images, they all say in their accompanying message to me, “You know, now that I look at these more closely, I think they’re probably yellow jackets.”

100% Pure Love and Apology

Posted by liz on September 12, 2010

Reader, yesterday I was a clutz.

Yesterday marks an all-time low on the clumsy beekeeper scale, and I still get a little sick thinking about it.

As I was trying to deal with the issue of yellow jackets at site of the August Boatwright hive, I accidently lifted a hive box full of bee upside down and dumped all the frames on the ground. I swear, if bees can feel energy from humans, then they felt from me 100% pure love and apology.

As I worked to put things back together, I talked to the bees—I told them how I hated to keep putting them through such trauma. I told them that I don’t know why the universe had placed them in my care. I told them I was doing my best.

I told them all of this as I lifted the frames one by one and put them back into the box and as I scooped up handfuls of bees and placed them back in their home and as I watched those too scattered about to collect wandering around in the sticks and the grass. Then I figured it was probably best if I just left the scene and let them take care of themselves.

Kill the Yellow Jackets

Posted by liz on September 11, 2010

Grrrrr.

I kept seeing all these little yellow jackets as I was feeding the August Boatwright hive yesterday. I squished a lot of them with my hive tool, but they just kept coming, so I investigated. Hundreds of them were coming up from beneath the cinder block on which I’d placed my new bee-tree hive. Shit. Looks like there’s a nest beneath the beehive, and they went straight for the sugar water I fed the bees.

I swear, I’m not sure how to handle this one. The August Boatwright hive isn’t yet back on its own two feet after their removal from the bee tree. They’re still recovering, and their hopes for survival are slim even without this f*cking yellow-jacket invasion…they haven’t yet built up enough bees or the defenses to fight off yellow jackets or other threats.

I immediately reduced the size of the hive entrance—I would move the hive to another spot altogether if I thought they could take another relocation, but I hate to mess with them just as they’re getting their legs back under them.

Treatment for yellow jacket nests? Douse them with gasoline and let the fumes kill them.

Problem with that? Their nest is just beneath the bee colony, so the fumes would kill the bees, too.

JP, my new friend on Beemaster.com, suggested I soak them with hot soapy water—the soap suffocates them. I have to do this at night when all the yellow jackets are in their nest. So, last night I mixed up two five-gallon buckets of hot, soapy water, put on my full-fledged bee suit, stumbled out to the beeyard in the dark, and dumped all the water and soap where I think the nest is.

The sun isn’t yet up this morning, so I can’t assess how this worked. I’ll let you know, though.

Category: Pests