Yellow Jacket anatomy

[PaulZ]

That sure sounds like a Wasp nest, mud, or paper?

This nest initially started in the vent louvers which had rotted away from the roof leaking and left a big hole under eve. The wife had been complaining for years about getting it fixed so racoons or other creatures wouldn't get in. It was half in the attic and half outside under the eve.

 

[coastal steelheader]

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?

I've seen the same thing with both yellow jackets and bald faced hornet in regards to my hummingbird feeders. They drink their fill, then either fly off erratically bouncing off windows, the rhododendron bushes, or they sit there on the feeder walking in circles and turning the place into a wasp version of Thunderdome. I've always wondered if the sugar water has some kind of intoxicating effect on them. If the weather warms up this weekend I'll leave a plastic container with sugar water out and see what happens and hopefully get some pics!

Last year I got to see what amounted to a war between yellow jackets and bald faced hornets, when I drug a couple of old pieces of wood out of the brush behind my place. I broke the wood apart and found it was full of termites and I spent a weekend watching both yellow jackets and bfh's land and yank the termites out of their exposed tunnels and eat them alive. It wasn't long until the hornets decided they weren't going to share and turned on the yellow jackets. I have seen ants go to war against other colonies, but never wasps and it was both fascinating and horrifying to watch.

And now the story of my infamous run in with a yellow jacket nest. It was near halloween back in the late 70's and my cousins and I were playing hide and seek on a hillside behind the house of a person my mother was visiting. My cousins made it back to the car (I was "it") so I came down the hillside half walking, half sliding on my butt when I hit something face first and heard what sounded like flies buzzing around me. Then the object I hit face first landed in my lap and I realized it was a yelowjacket nest about the size of a basketball. Then I started feeling the stings - I was getting lit up everywhere! I managed to get to my feet and started running the rest of the way down the hill with this cloud surrounding me. My cousins thought I was playing a joke on them (I was yelling and my arms were waving crazily) until they noticed the cloud around my head and parts of the nest in my hair, and on my face. I ran into my moms car an old Datsun 610- all the while being lit up still. Sadly for me most of the nest made it into the car too. Thankfully the old St Joseph Hospital was only a block and a half away, and my mom drove the car with the swarm still inside to the ER doors - without getting stung once. Upon arrival two Aberdeen FD paramedics managed to fish me out of the backseat (they got stung repeatedly) and get me inside. Once inside the room my last memory before passing out was watching the nurses and the ER doc swatting yellow jackets on the walls.
I was stung over a hundred times mostly on my head, and had stings inside my mouth as well. The doctor said I was lucky to be alive. My mother said that while the doc was treating me they had half the staff inside the room and in the ER waiting room killing yellow jackets that were still in my clothes, or that followed me out of the car.

 

[Burt Gummer]

That is one of the most horrific wasp/yellowjacket stories I've ever heard. I will now have a frightmare about it. Damn.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

That would have been the end for me Coastal. I've developed a nasty reaction stings. It started when I was talking to a bull Elk in the dark on the back 40 with my 12 year old son. He was fortunately back about twenty feet when I used a branch to rake a tree to emulate an Elk rubbing his rack. What I didn't know in the dark was that there was a Bald faced hornets nest just above me. When I knocked the bottom out of it, they poured all over my head and shoulders, then they commenced to "gang rape" me. Man it felt like I was being hit with a ball peen hammer. By the time the wife got me to the emergency I was in bad shape. Doc told me it was really close and now I'm tethered to a sting kit or two when I'm on the mountain, at work or fishing. It stinks for a guy that loves to be far from the roads, but that's the way it is.

I still have a grudging admiration for old baldy, but I don't give yellow jackets any quarter. If one can find the big fatties early in the spring and kill them, every one is a nest that wont start as these are all females that will start their own nests to be discovered later, kinda of like you did,,, damn.

 

[Dinged]

In my bathroom I always end up finding a few yellow jackets. I have no idea how they got there, originally I thought they had a little hive or something in the attic but I caulked up the area around the skylight, maybe they come through the vent? Who knows, but I'm a sissy and hate insects so I pretty much crap myself when I see one. I Googled Bald Faced Hornet though, holy hell, 1 foot nest? I'd like to shoot one with a .308 round from far, far away.. lol. This thread reminds me how much I hate insects.

 

[The B]

maybe they come through the vent?

YES.

I'm a roofer, and bath vents are probably the single most prone area on a residential roof for yeller jackies. If you have a functioning baffle, it's usually not a problem- but most bath vents seem to be hooked up to that flexible drier vent crap and haphazardly nailed/screwed into the edge of the plywood under a regular roof ventilator. If'n it was me, I'd get up there and screen off the hole... jackies in my bathroom would be entirely unsat.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

jackies in my bathroom would be entirely unsat

Or I would be, one or the other!

 

[Kevatc]

Bald-faced hornet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I thought I knew what a bald faced hornet was until I saw this pic. Now I'm not sure. I have some all black flyers that look like small bumble bees that make a pretty good buzzing around the rafters of my pole barn. Not sure but I think they burrow into the wood. What are they?

 

[The B]

I thought I knew what a bald faced hornet was until I saw this pic. Now I'm not sure. I have some all black flyers that look like small bumble bees that make a pretty good buzzing around the rafters of my pole barn. Not sure but I think they burrow into the wood. What are they?

Not sure. Better kill 'em.