Subject: Re: Yellow Jackets

From: [email-masked] (Aaron Morris)
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 95 07:54:49 EDT

In article <[email-masked]>
muskrat central <[email-masked]> writes:
 
>
>I really would like to kill the little suckers....
>         The outside entrance where they come in is right outside my
>front door. It makes it hard for us to come and go. I can't get to the
>nest because there is no way in to the attic.
>Tony
>
 
Tony!
 
I've posted this to this and other bee related lists MANY(!) times and
I'm always amazed that people will try this bug bomb or that gasoline
trick when a very good and effective solution is probably in their closet
at home.  Give the following a shot.  IT REALLY WORKS!!!
 
          >----------  ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS  -----------<
 
A very benign, green, environmentally friendly and frugal way to get rid
of yellow jackets is to use a canister style vacuum cleaner (like a shop
vax or electrolux).  Simply place the hose next to the nest entrance on
a nice afternoon and leave it turned on for a couple of hours.  As the
yellow jackets come and go they get sucked into the vacuum.  No mess, no
pesticides, and it works!  I learned this trick from a neighbor who paid
an exterminator $50 to remove a nest of yellow jackets from their
exterior walls.  Of course you don't want to open the vacuum for a day
or two.  I assume the wasps die rather quickly with the dust and dirt in
the vacuum, but I've never opened the vacuum to find out.  I have used
this method four times without a single problem and much to the
amusement of passers by!  I prefer to avoid pesticides whenever
possible.  Be sure to change the bag in a day or two, as the decaying
yellow jackets are not something you want to leave in your vacuum.
                        >----------------<
 
Good luck!
Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!

---

From: [email-masked] (Evan E. Twombly)
Date: 28 Aug 1995 03:32:42 GMT

Tony

A simple trap my parents have used successfully for removing a few yellow
jackets at a party might work.  You have to hope most or all the the foragers
fall
into the trap.  So there aren't any left to raise young.

Take a Quart Jar, make a cone out of window screen material with the tip of
the cone facing down.  Inside the jar, put something yellow jackets eat. 
MEAT.  The scent 
will attract them and they will enter the large part of the cone, crawl
through the
small opening deep within the jar, grab some meat and fly up to the rim.  The
never
think to crawl down to the opening where they came in.  With a large nest,
use several
jars.  Dispose of by tossing the jars in the freezer overnight, throwout the
yellow
jackets and repeat.  I don't know if this will work but it may decimate the
nest and there is almost NO danger to you!  I think that's what you may find
to be the best part of this plan

Good Luck
Evan

17808 Bonney Lk BLVD
Bonney Lk WA  USA