Yellowjackets

We have been having a year for yellow jackets around here! We have found 5 nests so far, and killed three of them. They aren't very easy to spot, so I believe each find has been a blessing because it was found by actually seeing the the yellow jackets going in and out of the their hole in the ground...not by accidentally stepping on their nest entrance! To kill them, my husband suits up in his honeybee suit with veil and gloves, gets a shovel, and a can of wasp spray. Note to self: we are out of wasp spray and I need to get some more!

First, he smokes them with his honeybee smoker to calm them down a little before he does anything else. Then he starts digging with his shovel to find the actual nest, as the tunnel may be several feet long. Right about when the shovel is 1/2 inch in the ground, the smoke effect is OVER, and they come boiling out of the ground, mad as hornets! My husband said it is a little eerie, because unlike honeybees which make a pronounced buzzing, yellow jackets are silent when they fly. He digs up the nest and destroys it, and sprays the immediate area down with poison. We would prefer not to use the poison, but find it more desirable than having the potential for being severely stung! Even with his suit, my husband still gets a few stings when he destroys a yellow jacket nest. I have read that a clear glass bowl can be placed on the ground over the entrance of a nest and they can't find their way out, eventually starving the nest. We have tried it several times, and it did not work for us. They just dug a new opening to the nest.

Always use caution when dealing with yellow jackets! This is the way we deal with them, but we aren't really recommending this to anyone else, as someone may try our method and not use common sense in the process. I have not until now mentioned that my husband also wears heavy leather boots while he kills a yellow jacket nest, but hopefully nobody with the brain capacity of an aphid was assuming he was doing this in his bare feet! Right...?