Wasp Blower
softsolder.com
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Obviously, if you've got young kids around or the wasps are being aggressive, take care of the humans first, but understanding them a bit can really reduce the conflict with them.
Then you chase your friends around the neighborhood with your personal attack wasp. Good times.
This reminds me of a story where Sage Mandavya established the first juvenile law in Hindu mythology.
<story starts>
Long ago, there lived a great sage named Mandavya who had taken a vow of silence and spent his days in deep meditation. One day, while he sat motionless beneath a tree with his arms raised in penance, a group of thieves being pursued by the king’s soldiers fled into his hermitage. They hid their stolen loot near the sage and escaped through the other side. When the king’s soldiers arrived, they found the stolen goods but the sage—deep in meditation and bound by his vow of silence—neither confirmed nor denied their presence. The soldiers arrested him and brought him before the king, accusing him of harboring criminals.
Despite his spiritual stature, the king ordered a severe punishment: Mandavya was to be impaled on a stake (shula)—a horrific execution where a wooden spike was driven through the body. However, due to his immense yogic powers and detachment from the physical world, the sage did not die. He remained alive on the stake, enduring the agony with superhuman patience. Eventually, other sages intervened, the king realized his grave error, and Mandavya was freed. But the damage was done. When the sage finally left his mortal body, he went directly to Yamaloka—the realm of Yama, the god of death and justice—to demand an explanation.
“Why did I have to suffer such a gruesome fate?” Sage Mandavya asked Lord Yama. “What terrible sin did I commit to deserve impalement?” Yama consulted his records and replied, “When you were a child, you caught a dragonfly and pierced it with a needle through its body, watching it suffer for your amusement. That act of cruelty resulted in your punishment - you experienced the same suffering you inflicted on that innocent creature.”
Sage Mandavya was furious. “That was when I was a child!” he protested. “I was too young to understand the difference between right and wrong, between sin and virtue. How can you punish an ignorant child with the same severity as a knowing adult?”
Yama tried to explain that karma operates impartially, but Mandavya would not accept this. In his righteous anger, the sage cursed Yama himself: “For this unjust judgment, you shall be born as a human on Earth and experience mortality yourself!” This curse led to Yama being born as Vidura, the wise and virtuous counselor in the Mahabharata - a human who, despite his wisdom and righteousness, had to endure the limitations and sufferings of mortal life.
But Mandavya didn’t stop there. Using his spiritual authority, he proclaimed a new divine law: “No sin committed by a child below the age of fourteen shall count toward their karmic debt equivalent to that of an adult. Children who do not yet understand dharma and adharma shall not be punished for their ignorant actions.” This became the first “juvenile law” in Hindu mythology—a recognition that children, in their innocence and ignorance, deserve compassion and correction rather than severe punishment.
<story ends>
When I was a child, I too wanted to catch a dragonfly and tie a thread to it so it would fly around like a little pet. But my mother stopped me. She told me this very story of Sage Mandavya, and it scared me for life. I never forgot it, and I never tried to catch and bind a dragonfly again.
1. If is were possible for an ordinary mortal to impose arbitrary curses on the god of death and justice, the world would quickly descend into utter chaos.
2. If children are completely free from accountability, adults will form them into an army and convince them to commit crimes on their behalf, leading to an intolerable situation. This may already be a standard way of doing business in some parts of the world.
Opportunity myth? Mortals are simply temporarily embarrassed gods?
2. It would fail to deliver. The goal is to avoid punishment for crimes? But I suspect that convincing children to commit crimes is a crime by itself.
Yes, but logic doesn't apply to religious beliefs; anime logic does.
This is an ongoing problem in Norway now and I think it has been in Sweden for some time.
If you want to read more, search for the foxtrot network.
Mandavya is not just any mortal; he is an enlightened sage. In Hinduism, enlightened beings are considered superior to gods. There’s another story about Sage Markandeya (one of the nine immortals, the Chiranjeevis) who caused the death of Yama, the God of Death. In Hindu cosmology, all the gods hold honorary responsibilities, and nothing is permanent - not even the position of Brahma, the Creator
> 2. If children are completely free from accountability, adults will form them into an army and convince them to commit crimes on their behalf, leading to an intolerable situation. This may already be a standard way of doing business in some parts of the world
I believe he introduced a juvenile law, which involves reduced sentences or milder punishments rather than granting complete immunity from consequences.
I'm neither proud nor ashamed. Today in my more boring older age I just grab whatever random inappropriate houshold or automotive chemical is handy that squirts or sprays.
Wish I had thought of the freezer & string thing.
If you happen to have the spray bottle in hand while they are flying at you, a quick mist in the air in their flight path will turn them away.
I think these are also much larger than the violet carpenter bee.
Yellow jackets are a different story entirely. Sometimes they nest underground which can be a real problem (mowing/lawncare, pets, children), and they are far more aggressive than paper wasps and hornets. The sting is quite a bit worse than either, too, so my philosophy is if I find a nest in the spring it’s given no quarter with no remorse.
Wait a couple days to see activity die down, might need another application. Eventually the queen will die which will kill the colony. Any stragglers can be handled with spray cans.
There are some YouTube videos [0] that show the idea of using carbaryl dust that might be helpful. An insecticide dust applicator would be the perfect thing to use, but all I did was slowly march up to the hole and dump the dust from a cup right onto it.
That’s when the Cistercian legate Arnaud Amalric supposedly gave his infamous order:
“Caedite eos; Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.” “Kill them all; for the Lord knows those that are His.”
It’s a paraphrase of 2 Timothy 2:19 (“The Lord knoweth them that are his”).
The crusaders slaughtered virtually the entire population—estimated between 10,000 – 20,000 people—before burning the city.
ps I have an irrational fear of wasps
My current approach is to wait until after dark, then fill up the nest entrance with spray foam (while wearing a beekeeper suit, just to be safe). I don't think that would work for walls, though - they'd probably find another way out.
This avoids spraying poisons around your household environment.
Or maybe they couldn't find their way out of the can in the dark, who knows. As a fellow Boh aficionado I can't blame them for trying.
Normally, hornets are great. They are nowhere near as aggressive as yellowjackets (unless you mess with the nest), and they eat yellowjackets, so you either have hornets or yellowjackets, but not both (but they also eat bees, so people who want to encourage pollinators, need to discourage them).
But that low on the ground, and that close to the house, they had to go.
I have heard too many horror stories about botched hornet removal, so I called in a pro. I have a friend in the business, so I got a break (but that was $150).
It was interesting, watching him do it. Took about 15 minutes. He had a special suit. It looked flimsy, but they couldn’t get through.
The only hornets news I hear is that they're invasive and killing pollinators.
That said even though they're not particularly aggressive, I don't know anyone who would just leave a nest on their property.
They kill all kinds of nasty bugs, and are pretty standoffish (as long as you don't get near the nest).
Piss them off, however, and your life will experience whole new vistas of pain.
Obviously if you live on a farm, it might be different, especially if you have fruit trees, which should keep them busy.
Yellowjackets, on the other hand, dig holes; often quite near houses. They are also quite aggressive. You can easily disturb their nests.
Also, I don’t think hornet stings are as venomous as yellowjacket stings (they probably don’t need to be). Being swarmed by yellowjackets really sucks.
I’d pick hornets over yellowjackets, any day.
As a side note, destroying hornets nests (and wasps possibly as well) is illegal in many European countries because they are protected.
They aren't actually real hornets. They are just big yellowjackets.
What I don't have good luck with is the nests built high up since I'm afraid of heights
I get the impression most commenters here are from the US, whilst I live in the UK. Am I naive to the aggression of American wasps, or is it just more acceptable to kill creatures you find bothersome over there?
Does anyone with experience both sides of the pond have any insight?
Yes. Yellow jackets are very aggressive. Having them live in or next to your house is just asking for an injury.
I'm vegetarian because of personal ethics. I safely capture and release spiders I find in the house. I use live traps for mice and rats, and release them in the woods. But most wasps here are on my "nip the problem in the bud" list, along with termites, Scotch Broom, and a few other things.
I leave non-aggressive wasps, like Great Golden Diggers, alone.
From Wikipedia:
In North America, Scotch broom was frequently planted in gardens, and was later used for erosion control along highway cuts and fills. Scotch broom is slightly toxic and unpalatable to livestock, and its seeds are viable for up to ten years, allowing them to regrow many years later, after extermination of the plant.
The other part might come from having different types of wasps. The ones in the article look like yellowjackets, which are extremely aggressive. They also tend to nest in holes in the ground. Yellowjackets are bad news because if you accidentally step close to their nest they will swarm you, often getting multiple stings in even if you are quick to run away.
This is much different than honey bees and other types of wasps who are much less likely to attack just by being near them.
Wasps nest under the eaves of houses all the time. If they're not near an entryway, usually people leave them alone as long as the nest stays small.
Yellow jackets do not nest under the eaves of a house. They burrow in the ground (or walls) where you can't see them or the nest size. They're also particularly aggressive and will swarm if you step on their nest.
YJs are more aggressive and territorial than a normal "wasp" with the added bonus of sometimes they just swarm you out of nowhere.
So that night and the next few I had a roaring fire and let it get cold during the day. I really didn't want to go into the attic to investigate. Eventually there were no more wasps. Problem solved!
I ended up calling an exterminator who used delta dust, which the wasps carry into the nest. It was a little pricey (~$150) but it was peace of mind from the other alternative, being able to do nothing. The exterminator came back for free a few days later to re-dust when there was little change in activity. The second go did the trick.
I did look at a few options online before calling. One idea was to set up a vacuum trap with a shop vac (1).
They are somewhat destructive in their nesting. We ended up having to kill a few when they were excavating the bedding sand between the flagstones surrounding the house. They could dig out a pile of sand standing 4 - 5 inches tall in about 30 minutes (leaving a hole about an inch in diameter right in the middle of the pile).
They don't sting and are scared of humans. When they're unladen they fly very quickly and are quite agile. When they're laden with a cicada they bumble through the air in a most amusing way. They are also persistent-as-heck when it comes to their nesting behavior.
I wish I could do something like this wasp blower to gently suggest these guys nest in the yard instead of between the flagstones.
https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/1o195z6/i_elimi...
You can safely use a spray to pick them off late in the evening, and if you get there early enough, depending on the species, one of those wasps could actually be the queen, because she may still be leaving the nest in order to care for her earliest brood.
If you don't get the queen, because the nest is so small, you may get enough toxin onto one of the early workers that they will bring it into contact with the queen.
You then use an insecticide foam around the entrance to any hole you see wasps going into. You can lay it on pretty thick, more than once, and they will progressively poison the nest. You can do this a few days apart in the evening.
Since the nest is still small you probably don't need to hit the nest, and you might as well leave it because then no other colony will use the space. You do need to saturate any pathway they take to it.
Directly above a bedroom window that is impossible to see from the outside but can be deduced by a process of elimination, in the roof of my 210 year old house, is a tiny gap, which attracted a nest nine years ago. I used this method and while I think I might very well have got the queen directtly, activity around the nest stopped in about 48 hours, and while every year I see wasps investigate the hole, I am guessing corpses put them off.
In the warm late spring of the pandemic I resprayed the hole, and sprayed a couple more, with what was left of the can, because I reasoned that it might be difficult to get a pest controller to deal with them; this proved to be a wise decision because nests established in several places nearby in that lovely hot summer that went untreated for far too long.
Great book.
Don't forget to put water in the tank or you'll be met by a cloud of angry wasps when you open it.
It is absolutely hypnotizing.
It won't kill an entire nest late in the season, but will knock down their numbers so that they aren't as prevalent.
Me and my friend's father tried to fight off the wasps by killing them. I crushed them with a fly swatter and the father sprayed them at close quarters with a bottle of Raid.
My friend would instead turn off the lights in the kitchen and turn on the ones nearer the door, then turn on the lights outside, so the wasps would naturally follow the light and find their way out.
Me and my friend's dad killed the wasps, my friend guided them to the light and got rid of them without murder.
Also, my friend was once stung by one of those wasps, while I never was. I don't know about the father.
I've often thought that if me and my friend were prehistoric people, I'd be like the stereotypical brutish primitive hominid going around bonking everything on the head with a bludgeon while my friend would like, figure out how to make leather out of animal hides or invent pottery or arithmetic or something.
P.S. Suffice it to say, I've never killed a hornet since, or any other insect on purpose. I only kill mosquitoes on purpose and that only after a long time that I tried not to.
Three Valuable Peptides from Bee and Wasp Venoms for Therapeutic and Biotechnological Use: Melittin, Apamin and Mastoparan [1]
BBC: Wasp venom 'a weapon against cancer' (2015) [2]
I’ve seen my dad do it a lot of times with his bare hands, never got stung. But if you pass by the nest enough times, you’ll be.
Another good solution is fire. A blow torch with a wide flame, burns their wings (if it doesn’t outright kill them) and also their nest, which is more or less made of paper.
Soapy water is unreasonably effective. Water alone is not. The soap makes the water extra clingy and does a pretty rapid job of incapacitating insects. Then killing them. I've taken out individual wasps this way, but not a whole nest.
We have paper wasps predominantly around here, and they will tend to nest in secluded areas, often voids or overhangs. I built my shed specifically to limit the ability for wasps to have a great place to make home.
This was after attempting to spray the opening with regular wasp spray a few times. Sure, it killed a dozen or so drones each time but never really put a dent in the population.
Beyond that I guess only completely saturating an internal trunk route through the thing with a tool like that is going to work!
I had a ground nest, but it was built into a rock wall for a raised flower bed. They had several exit points. Despite emptying multiple of those spray cans, it was a healthy hive. Feeling discouraged, I dumped a bunch of fire ant powder all over the rocks. I did it at night, hoping they were all in there. I checked on them the next day and they were gone. I have no idea if it killed them or they decided it wasn’t a good home location anymore and left. Either way, no more yellow jackets.
Trick might be finding the CO2, you can normally rent a tank at a welding supply shop. You'll also need a pressure regulator and hose.
Dry ice can also be used, put some in a soda bottle with water and a hose taped up or snug fit to the top. Do not allow the bottle to pressurize however.
Some people have reported using car exhaust but I'm not sure that's as effective.
If you have a problem with wasps trying to nest under porches at your exterior doors you should paint the underside of the porches sky blue. This will discourage nesting by making the wasps feel like the site is exposed to the weather.
Bees make honey and pollinate - yellowjacket wasps may remove some pests from the environment, but otherwise bring pain and suffering to the unwary.