Yellow Jacket anatomy

[salmonriverjohn]

ZA_Survivalist. I have a question for you, every other year or so, we have a tree that produces a pollen, or pitch that attracts Aphids. Along come the bald face and they seem to be eating a liquid that the Aphid produce when touched, which the bald faced do with great, glee and the results appear to be some apparently very drunk hornets.
When they're in this state they can't fly, and the only time they get aggressive is when they run into each other on the same branch and there isn't enough room to pass each other, it becomes a wrestling match until one, or both fall to the ground from the branch. At times the ground is crawling with "drunk"?? hornets.
You can literally walk among and even touch them without provoking an attack, they seem to be very happy drunks. It's the strangest damn thing. Any ideas as to what is occurring here?

 

[BANE]

One way of safely killing them is a heavy soap and water mix and spraying them from a water bottle! It works great! They all breathe from poors in there belly and the soap plugs those up very fast and they die.....

 

[Redcap]

she says it looks cool....she collects weird stuff. Between her and my daughter there are some odd things around this household lol.

Oh, a dead hive? I understand then...I donate the hives to local schools for their science programs.

 

[Redcap]

One way of safely killing them is a heavy soap and water mix and spraying them from a water bottle! It works great! They all breathe from poors in there belly and the soap plugs those up very fast and they die.....

Engine degreaser, brake clean and starting fluid also work real well.

 

[repins05]

Somebody needs to post a pic of a bald face hornet that we have here in oregon...

 

[Garg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald-faced_hornet

 

[Redcap]

Roofers and YJs have an ancient blood-feud, and the killing season is steadily upon us. I've already dueled, and to the death, several. Notice I'm still here.

<image edited for inappropriate content> - Joe Link

By the way, that is an epic image.

 

[PaulZ]

If you see a Bald Faced Hornet nest on your property use it for yellowjacket and slug control. Just remember where it is and tell people not to molest the nest. I was taking pictures of the "duty air conditioning hornets" and had them bounce off the back of my head and go on into the nest. Seems they will not go military on you if you don't mess with the nest.

 

[Redcap]

If you see a Bald Faced Hornet nest on your property use it for yellowjacket and slug control. Just remember where it is and tell people not to molest the nest. I was taking pictures of the "duty air conditioning hornets" and had them bounce off the back of my head and go on into the nest. Seems they will not go military on you if you don't mess with the nest.

I've had them get nasty for being within 50 feet of nest.

 

[KalamaMark]

ZA_Survivalist. I have a question for you, every other year or so, we have a tree that produces a pollen, or pitch that attracts Aphids. Along come the bald face and they seem to be eating a liquid that the Aphid produce when touched, which the bald faced do with great, glee and the results appear to be some apparently very drunk hornets.
When they're in this state they can't fly, and the only time they get aggressive is when they run into each other on the same branch and there isn't enough room to pass each other, it becomes a wrestling match until one, or both fall to the ground from the branch. At times the ground is crawling with "drunk"?? hornets.
You can literally walk among and even touch them without provoking an attack, they seem to be very happy drunks. It's the strangest damn thing. Any ideas as to what is occurring here?

Cool description, John. Thanks for first taking the time to observe closely, secondly, for taking the time to share what you saw with us. I have no idea, but I'm a student of critters big and small around me, and I'm fascinated by what you saw.

 

[sheepdip]

was deer hunting in the paulina unit a few years back, hot and dry. the yellowjackets were thick. we set out a half dozen or so small paper bowls with water and a little dawn in them. killed yellowjackets by the hundreds, literally had to empty the bowls several times a day because there were so many dead jackets that no more could get to the water. dont know if it would work if it wasnt so dry out, but it sure worked then.

 

[The B]

was deer hunting in the paulina unit a few years back, hot and dry. the yellowjackets were thick. we set out a half dozen or so small paper bowls with water and a little dawn in them. killed yellowjackets by the hundreds, literally had to empty the bowls several times a day because there were so many dead jackets that no more could get to the water. dont know if it would work if it wasnt so dry out, but it sure worked then.

My uncle used to use beer. Worked good, but my hatred for them precludes such a humane method.

---

You stole my sigline

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Cool description, John. Thanks for first taking the time to observe closely, secondly, for taking the time to share what you saw with us. I have no idea, but I'm a student of critters big and small around me, and I'm fascinated by what you saw.

It's a strange thing Kalama, and a different side to "old baldy" that appears be contradictory their known behavior. It seems to happen every other year or so. The sound alone from the droning of so many hornets drawn to the Aphids can be disconcerting, yet their behavior towards intrusion seems to illicit no aggressive response? Not sure though that i would want to lick an Aphid for the experience, although I've known a couple of aunts that wouldn't be to bad

 

[jbett98]

My brother just reminded me of a hornet nest related story from our childhood.
We found a yellow jacket nest in the side yard of our house that was located right in the middle of the area we would play touch football.
My brilliant idea was to pour about a half gallon of my dads lawnmower gas down the hole and set a match to it.
Being somewhat of a firebug at that age, it took very little encouragement from the neighbor kids to proceed with my plan.
What I didn't plan on was all of the flames shooting up out of the worm holes. If you tried stomping on a hole, it just made all of the others flare up higher.
My little brother saved the day by turning on the sprinkler system.
Weeks later, I found my dad standing in the side yard with a real puzzled look on his face.
Starting from the center of his pride and joy lawn in a concentric web of brown grass, looking like a spider web that extended over twenty feet from the large brown spot in the center. He even took samples of the brown turf to a gardening center to try to figure out what was killing the turf.
Luckily my little brother never ratted me out.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

What a little brother jbett, mine would have rolled over unless there was an ice creme bar or something involved.

 

[sheepdip]

when i was a kid living in sisters, my brother and i found a paper nest about the size of a football hanging in an alder near squaw creek. after a few carefully thrown rocks we determined that the nest was vacant. [ it was winter and quite cold ] long story short we got the nest out of the tree and took it home and put it on the dresser in our bedroom. well the nest wasnt vacant at all, just dormant. after a little while in the heat of the house there were bees all over the place. mom and dad werent very happy to say the least. i dont remember just what kind of bees they were, just that there were a lot of them. LOL would have been probably 1964 or 1965

 

[ZA_Survivalist]

ZA_Survivalist. I have a question for you, every other year or so, we have a tree that produces a pollen, or pitch that attracts Aphids. Along come the bald face and they seem to be eating a liquid that the Aphid produce when touched, which the bald faced do with great, glee and the results appear to be some apparently very drunk hornets.
When they're in this state they can't fly, and the only time they get aggressive is when they run into each other on the same branch and there isn't enough room to pass each other, it becomes a wrestling match until one, or both fall to the ground from the branch. At times the ground is crawling with "drunk"?? hornets.
You can literally walk among and even touch them without provoking an attack, they seem to be very happy drunks. It's the strangest damn thing. Any ideas as to what is occurring here?

That is interesting. In my line of work we see some pretty oddball stuff from time to time.. enough to where when we get to a persons house we take a look andcant help but say: "Wow, this is really neat!". But as to an answer.. I cannot honestly give you one sir. Pretty interesting though.

I know that Carpenter Ants will herd aphids like cattle and feed off the liquid they secrete. Now with the liquid that those bald faced hornets could be feeding off of could very well be a mixture of what the aphid is feeding on, perhaps a potent mixture, enough to where it has a systemic effect with the aphids secretion. I personally have never seen it but boy would that be fun to watch.

 

[ZA_Survivalist]

Engine degreaser, brake clean and starting fluid also work real well.

See now if I or any other licensed Pest Control Technician told you about any type of homemade concoction we could get into some serious trouble and potentially lose our license as per the threat of the ODA and EPA.
But then again.. some folks talk about 922r the same way. haha.

 

[Burt Gummer]

I don't know if this is restricted to the nasty flying monsters here in North America, but I believe the Japanese Hornet would far surpass our bald faced hornet. Forty people die in Japan a year from that nasty beast. "1000 ways to die" showed a guy getting a massage where the wall was buzzing, and they kicked the wall (smart) and they came purring out of an open electrical outlet and killed the guy on the spot.

When the queen is starting a nest she goes on a killing spree for food that is crazy. A praying mantis got its head bit off in one second. Big spiders 3-4x her size last a couple of seconds. Just scary.

Personally, I know everyone has their phobias and I'd rather take my chances in a ring with an angry bull or a pack of wolves than these things. I consider myself pretty tough but I morph into a little girl around these things. Somehow, honey bees don't bother me at all. I think it has finally sunk in that they really are not out to harm me - but these yellowjackets/hornets - screw them. Not many people would pre-order RentoKil all the way from England 'just in case.'

 

[ejmpnu92]

I was painting a house down in San Jose CA and encountered a hornets nest, well, actually several of them. After a Home Depot run, the hornets were dispatched rather quickly, however, there was the odd hornet buzzing around. I was helping out a friend, who, is 7ft tall and close to 450lbs. (that is for the next image) I walked up behind him with a very long weed and ran the end of the weed against his ear. He thought it was a hornet, he was jumping and slapping at his head....I was rolling on the ground dying of laughter. I was lucky he did not get his paws on me, he wanted to hurt me bad.