13 Mar Giant Yellow Jacket Hive
When spring arrives, I face a mountain of chores, one of which is to make the rounds of my two barns and 10 outbuildings to discourage the hive-building of yellow jackets, wasps, and hornets. Yellow jackets are the most aggressive and the most adaptable–meaning their nests could be anywhere: from burrows underground to nests high the the eaves of a building. They love an untouched log pile. Last year I found a hive in a wooden box of pinecones in one barn. Maybe “found” is not the right word because I usually discover a hive in the worst way, by thoughtlessly knocking into it or tripping over it or stepping on it. The result is a furious attack from the soldiers that guard the nest. They take no prisoners and can sting and sting again.
Which brings up an important point. Wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets are not bees.They belong to the family of wasps. You may have noticed that wasps feed on meat. This includes carrion, as well as other insects. (They’re also crazy for sugar.) Bees are strictly herbivores: they want only pollen. Also, bees are good for only one sting. That’s why we love bees. Obviously, the ability to sting and sting again makes wasps dangerous. And their aggression makes them a liability where people congregate, like here on the farm. So I circulate regularly around my buildings and knock down any nests I find–from now till next winter.
As you might have guessed, wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets sting me every year. Call this an occupational hazard. My worst encounter left me with 6 stings. I try to be careful, of course, but sometimes they surprise me. Last year I discovered a swarm of yellow jackets in the apex of the shed that holds our public bathrooms. My usual strategy is to seal them in and seal them out with closed-cell foam. If you catch the hive-building early enough, this might work. But, try as I did, my efforts did not affect this hive in the least. So i closed down the bathroom for the rest of the season and have just returned to it recently as the weather warmed up.
Here’s another important fact: wasps will not re-use a hive. I know, this practice doesn’t seem to make sense but there it is. However, before abandoning a nest–and losing all of the workers and soldiers to cold weather–the queen will lay 1,000-2,000 eggs that will produce the next season’s queens, most of which will be eaten by birds etc. The survivors will venture out to start new hives. But wait, there’s more: even though wasps won’t use an old hive, they will return to a location they have found to be advantageous. On my farm, it happens to be the east-facing wall of one particular building. The good thing is that these wasps are fairly gentle: when they get into the building, they congregate at the windows, eager to get outside.
Remember, when I say “wasps” I’m talking about a wide variety of hornets, wasps, and yellow jackets. The nest over my public bathroom belonged to yellow jackets. The worst, as I said. I wondered if all of those queen hatchlings would be in there. And how big was that nest, anyway? Imagine my surprise when at last I climbed into the attic of the space in question and saw the biggest paper wasp nest I’d ever seen, attached to the farthest wall from my entrance: two-feet tall and more than a foot wide. All of that in a single season?
As I crawled toward the nest, I was a bit anxious, reminded of scenes from vampire movies as the vampire hunter approaches the vampire’s lair during daylight. It was cold enough on this morning that, if the hatchlings were indeed in place, they’d be sluggish, at best. Flashlight in hand and a bucket of scrapers etc. in my other, I crawled to the nest, heard no buzzing, saw no activity, and decided it was all clear or clear enough. The video below shows my tearing out the nest. Wasps nests are always made of paper and they can be quite lovely, this one made of marbled paper. Nobody was home, thankfully, and soon enough I had cleaned it out. A relief, yes. I could see now why it had been impossible to seal out yellow jackets: this nest was the equivalent of a highrise apartment building.
So spring begins and I’m ever on the watch. But keep this in mind: I will not disturb an active nest of wasps if they are out of the way and minding their own business. For example, consider that box of pine cones I found last year, where yellow jackets had made a home. I simply kept my distance and let them do what they do best, harvesting aphids and flies and caterpillars. When the season was done and they were gone, their lovely paper nest enfolding a mound of pinecones made great kindling in my fireplace.