ground nesting yellow jacket nest

[mark60]

gas treatment this morning checked this afternoon did not see thing around will check tomorrow

[acem]

This thread would be better with some action shots!

[Alan Dinan]

Dad was mowing a field back in the 60’s with a Super 88 and hit a ground nest, he kicked it into neutral and jumped off. It was in a low area that he didn’t get planted that year and he said that the weeds were taller than the muffler. The field was close to a rock quarry where he knew a guy who worked there had bees, so figured that he had a bee suit. Walked over to the quarry and asked him about it, the guy went home and got his suit and shut the tractor off and marked the hole while he was there. Dad went back the next morning with a can of gas and burned them out.

I got stung by a ground hornet back in the late 80’s early 90’s. Dad and I were mowing wheat stubble/foxtail , as I turned around to look at the mower it hit me in the neck. That’s when I found out that I was allergic. I started swelling up, so went to the house and my dad’s cousin, who was also allergic, was there visiting grandma, asked grandma if she had any Benadryl. She did, and it worked.

[New Englander]

23 hours ago, vtfireman85 said:

Those Farsi speakers seem adept at such activities 😂

He was always polite and proper in English and it seems when talking in Farsi with other Persians who visited but multiple yellow jacket stings brought out some language I'd never heard before.

[New Englander]

My wife said it was quite a sight when I was fleeing in an open station in road gear across a lumpy field. From my perspective they were keeping up easily and didn't give up for about 1500'. I imagined the little suckers were laughing at me.

[vtfireman85]

I got into them while string trimming once, I dropped the trimmer and ran for it, it idled along for a good 20 minutes and I don’t think those ******** ever stopped attacking it. 

[mark60]

thank you guys the gas did the trick

[ray54]

They are quit a lot of them around here. I was only 4 or 5 the first nest I got into. It was only 30 feet from the back door of the house. I played in the yard a lot by myself. My mother happened to be out side and saw them coming out of the hole and came and pulled me away.

The last one I was in was 15 years or more ago. Building a fence and was measuring for post placement.

I have run over more than I can remember doing fall tillage here. All open crawler tractors. Some place I read very similar to bees in that bears are one of the animals that don't care about stings anywhere on the body but the nose. So yellow jackets, and bees all look for carbon monoxide, or maybe the warm air we exhale to help find the nose. But soon reading after I saw them fly at the exhaust of the tractor and fly down into it. Some times never getting stung.

But one of the worst ways is riding horse back. I had one horse that just wanted swat them with the tail and stomp at the ones on his legs. Was having no luck getting him off the nest. Of course some horse set off bucking. Thankfully never feel off one of the bucking ones. Several times pushing cattle have seen them attack the cows and been able to go around the area.

 

Fifty years ago a neighbor got into making traps to catch them. Used 5 gal buckets. Make a cone bottom of screen, with just enough hole the can fly up through. With a screen top. Place over a piece of meat or fruit with one edge up about an inch. After getting food to take back to hive the want to fly up. Now you can buy pre made plastic ones about the size of quart jars.

The yellow jackets can get so thick one vineyard worker that tended the plastic traps where he worked had a garbage bag full of the dead ones out the traps he tended in the vineyard. My experience is they multiply fast enough that trapping never gets very far ahead of them.

Someone told me of a pesticide that could be mixed in canned cat food. It was hard to figure out the right amount. To much and the smell kept them away. Three years ago found a you tube of a guy using boric acid in fruit juice. He was very detailed and used fruit in the pan to make a landing area so they don't drown. They need to get that the mix back to the nest and kill the new ones off. We used it with some succuss. Maybe way more than I thought. As of now we still only have 3 or 4 show up when putting cat food out. It has been enough to cover the food and keeps cat off if putting it out before dark in the evening.

 

We used diesel in the old days. 😉 Was cheaper than gas. 😢 Of course that is no longer true.

[vtfireman85]

Funny this came up, it’s been several years Since I have been stung, in 2019 I got it really bad, looked like the elephant man.. I could share a picture… but.. anyway my daughter noticed a big nest under the deck, she has pretty sharp eyes, I figured I would deal with it that night, when I got to work I was looking for something and found a big, basketball sized nest of white face hornets.. another thing to deal with at night… went to the job and I was just walking by this little Amish shed and bam, got nailed on the back of the neck, almost like getting shot point blank by a bb gun…. Ask me how I know.. little SOBs just fly around angry all the time. They had made their nest somehow inside the walls of the Amish shed, I put the “Bee Bopper” to them best I could, (wasn’t real successful) then finished my last can that night on the nest under the deck. Those were the 1” long yellow faced ones, like a white face, but yellow. The white faced ones are still alive, I haven’t been there at night to tackle them. 
I have mixed feelings about the foaming spray, it’s cool in principle, but it builds up fast and ultimately falls off, and doesn’t saturate the nest. I like the liquid to really soak the nest, then foam to cover it up. 

[New Englander]

We have an above ground pool with a deck. Brown wasps nest under it and never bother anyone so I leave them alone. Yellow wasps of some type got in the house under the eves and I ended up making a device on a long piece of strapping with a hose full of insecticide strapped to it triggered with a couple hundred feet of air hose from the shop. It successfully blasted enough powder in two attempts to kill them all. They had gotten deep in the house.

I like the liquid spray. I hit a bald face nest with foam and they seemed to just bathe in it. Liquid soaking the nest took care of those aggressive SOBs.

[Shell1066]

Got nailed on the right temple two weeks ago by the little buggers. A good shot from a can of non-clor brake clean worked wonders. Put the little straw in the tip and you can some  range.

[vtfireman85]

45 minutes ago, Shell1066 said:

Got nailed on the right temple two weeks ago by the little buggers. A good shot from a can of non-clor brake clean worked wonders. Put the little straw in the tip and you can some  range.

They don’t hold up to brake clean. Makes me want to be more careful with it. 

[Shell1066]

2 minutes ago, vtfireman85 said:

They don’t hold up to brake clean. Makes me want to be more careful with it. 

 I hear you trying to watch better myself.

[vtfireman85]

36 minutes ago, Shell1066 said:

 I hear you trying to watch better myself.

Don’t burn it either.. it’s worse than the galvanized jitters. 

[B.B.]

On 8/31/2026 at 8:40 PM, acem said:

This thread would be better with some action shots!

 

[Jason Goodman]

Don’t know how to get rid of them but I have a little story about them,One time I was on a 574 bush hogging and decided to clean up the pond bank, I was backing down until the bush hog got close to the water and the third time I backed down I got ate up!! I had to put the tractor in forward gear and drive it until I was on flat ground so I could get off and run,They had a lot of fun with me until I got away!!!

[New Englander]

10 hours ago, Jason Goodman said:

Don’t know how to get rid of them but I have a little story about them,One time I was on a 574 bush hogging and decided to clean up the pond bank, I was backing down until the bush hog got close to the water and the third time I backed down I got ate up!! I had to put the tractor in forward gear and drive it until I was on flat ground so I could get off and run,They had a lot of fun with me until I got away!!!

You didn't outrun them, they gave up after they figured you'd had enough! Yellow jackets cruise around 10 mph but can get close to 30 mph for short bursts. While running away in an opens station in road gear they easily kept up, so I looked it up.

[yellowrosefarm]

Ran across a nest with the lawnmower today. I mowed through there last week and didn't see it, so it can't be very big. I did not get stung, but saw several coming and going out of the hole. I'll pay another visit once it's dark enough. I had 4 last year, but this is the first one this year.

[TomH]

1 hour ago, yellowrosefarm said:

Ran across a nest with the lawnmower today. I mowed through there last week and didn't see it, so it can't be very big. I did not get stung, but saw several coming and going out of the hole. I'll pay another visit once it's dark enough. I had 4 last year, but this is the first one this year.

Found some yesterday it's that time of year, about a cup full of gas and no more yellow jackets!  Gas works the best despite what's "recommended". Fumes are heavier than air and displace all the oxygen in the nest.

[Dave Downs]

This thread must have jinxed me… I haven’t had any close up encounters with stinging insects for years.

Went to drag an old lawn tractor out of the shed today, it’s going off to the scrap yard.  Dirt floor and the wheels were a little sunk in so I got a digging bar to get some leverage to move it. Jammed the bar in the dirt and started prying on it…….and all h&@& broke loose. About 2 million really angry bees came boiling up out of the ground, 2 of them chased me over 50 feet, both of them finally got me.

 I happened to have 2 cans of wasp spray, emptied both cans in the direction of the nest. That slowed them down enough to pour some gasoline down the hole which eliminated any further activity.

[Drysleeves]

Gas poured in with water and drop a match. Best done after dark to make sure everyone's home and prevent retaliatory air strikes. Tried just water once after dark and one of the guards followed me into the back room and got me. No mercy after that incident.

Went to a picnic yesterday and they were everywhere at that place. Several of us got nailed including me and I was minding my own business at the time of attack.

[Rawleigh99]

When I worked on the golf course as a kid,  the groundskeeper used a 16 oz glass Coke bottle filled with gas and an old.wool blanket.

  He would turn the bottle upside down and stick it in  the hole and throw the blanket over it to leep any from escaping.

[vtfireman85]

Just now, Rawleigh99 said:

When I worked on the golf course as a kid,  the groundskeeper used a 16 oz Coke bottle filled with gas and am old.wool blanket

  He would turn the bottle upside down on the hole and throw the blanket over it to leep any from escaping.

Just let it soak in? Or light it up? 

[Rawleigh99]

Just the vapor would knock them dead.  No need for fire.  Might have been a little hard on the fairway! LOL

[Gabriella Cook]

get a wet-dry shop vac put water in it stick it in the whole wait a while feed to chickens