Watch Out For Yellowjackets

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Yellowjackets love sweets such as overripe fruit and flower nectar. In the fall, the yellowjacket population is at its yearly peak, while the supply of natural food sources such as nectar is low. The workers will be foraging around trashcans and picnic areas for sweets, and will become fierce if disturbed.

If there are nests in your area, don't take cans of soda, candy, or other sweets outside with you, since this can attract a swarm. The worst thing you can do is swat or crush a yellowjacket. The venom that is released contains a chemical message that instructs yellowjackets to attack, and the resulting swarm will be fearsome.

The preferred targets of yellow jackets are sweet fruit such as strawberries, blueberries, tree fruit, melons and the gardeners who tend them. Damage signs include holes in ripe fruit and a buzzing noise followed by a sharp pain. These fierce insects become more active, and many people believe more aggressive, in the hottest part of the summer. Perhaps they know that their life is drawing to a close, and plan to go out with a vengeance.

Yellow jacket nests are constructed underground or in cavities in walls and trees. They consist of chewed wood pulp connected into combs and surrounded by a papery covering with one opening. Yellow jackets are very protective of their nests, and if you venture to close you'll be met with a fast, headlong charge. Flailing and screaming seems to only encourage the attack, and unlike honeybees, each worker yellow jacket can sting numerous times. The good news is that you're fairly safe at night unless you physically disturb them.

If the nest isn't in an area frequented by people, consider trying to work out a plan of peaceful coexistence. The insect's one redeeming quality is that it is a good pest predator. A yellow jacket will dive into your plants and carry off whole flies and caterpillars to feed to its underground brood. If you find that you can't live with these neighbors, try using traps or destroying the nest.



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TRAPS

Trap queens by placing a shallow pan half filled with sugar water and a squirt of liquid soap as near the nest as you dare to go. Yellow jackets can normally tread water, but the soap changes the surface tension of the water and causes them to sink. This queen trap is only effective in spring, but each queen you catch will eliminate an entire future nest.

Later in the year, you can catch worker yellow jackets by suspending a piece of sweet, ripe fruit or fresh meat over a large pail of water containing soap. After the yellow jacket gorges himself he drops to the ground (i.e. into the bucket.) Don't forget the soap, or he will swim to the edge and crawl out.

DESTROYING THE NEST

Destroying aerial nests calls for a professional. If you knock down the nest, it will only be rebuilt and the inhabitants will enhance their defenses in the process.

If the nest is underground and you live in an area frequented by skunks or possums you have it made. Pile sweet molasses horsefeed, suet or other sweet feed near the nest and the night feeding mammals will excavate the nest for you. Otherwise, you can pour rotenone in the nest, cover securely, and run.

Warning: If you plan to go near the nest, do so at night, and work quickly.



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