FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

andynorth wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 6:44 am I guess that's one way to recycle aluminum, since it does come from the earth.

And you get a very unique piece of artwork at the same time.

optique wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:28 am a great way to get rid of yellow J's is pick up some borax from the laundry isle at the store and mix it with some sugar water. It will take two weeks to kill them so they will take it to the nest and feed the queen and the male bee's. works on ant's the same way.

Open feeding of poisoned sugar can kill lots of honey bees, too, or weaken the colonies so that they die out. I've used boric acid/sugar solutions to kill ants that were harassing hives but I would drill 1/8" holes in the upper sides of plastic food containers for the ants to enter but to keep the honey bees out.

OP, are the "yellow jackets" nest visible to you or hidden in the wall or ceiling of the house? Personally, I've never ran into a yellow jacket nest anywhere other than in the ground. Are you sure that they're yellow jackets? Honey bees are notorious for living in walls and other hollow spots in houses *if* they find a tiny hole/crack to enter it. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

steve booth wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 9:13 am The answer is yes during the late summer/autumn when they are looking for sweet things, not so early in the year, when they are hunting aphids, caterpillars, fruit etc for their larvae. Essentially they see them as a food source i.e. the nectar and eat that, and if they do get caught in the trap some can cut their way out through the pitcher.

Cheers
Steve

Steve, your mention of the seasonal swing of food sought by the yellow jackets reminds of an incident some 40(?) years ago. Me and some buddies met up at Cheaha Mountain Park (west of Birmingham, Alabama) and hiked to Blue Mountain for a three-day campout. It was a fairly dry time so we were *very* careful using fire and cooked most things on a whisperlite stove. Anyhow, we started noticing an abundance of yellow jackets flying and hovering knee-high and lower. They were *everywhere*. When we walked we basically waded through them. Well, we had cooked some slices of canadian bacon and had a couple of pieces we left laying in the frying pan in case someone wanted it later. We started noticing yellow jackets visiting it. Then we noticed a pile of tiny gold-colored balls being piled up beside the slices and the slices suddenly acquiring holes in the center. We decided to set the pan to the side to see what would happen. The hole in the slices kept getting bigger and the piles of little golden balls kept getting larger. Eventually there was nothing but the rinds of the bacon slices left and the piles of gold balls started getting smaller. It was pretty wild. By the time we packed up to go home they golden balls were gone and all that was left were the two rinds. This was in the third weekend in October that year. I still have no idea what the piles of yellow balls were. I know it was a food item for them, but what process and what they used them for at that time of the year eludes me.

As I said, the yellow jackets were *thick*...they were everywhere. When we walked it was like the yellow jackets just moved to the side like we were wading through water or something. It was incredible. Surprisingly, there were five of us and no one got stung over those three days! Later on we looked at our topo map and the little creek on the opposite side of the mountain was named.... Hillabee Creek. Go figure, eh?

Intheswamp wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 3:24 pm OP, are the "yellow jackets" nest visible to you or hidden in the wall or ceiling of the house? Personally, I've never ran into a yellow jacket nest anywhere other than in the ground.

Here it is quite common to find their nests in trees and attached to the eaves of a house or building.

Interesting. We have plenty of Guinea wasps, red wasps, black wasps (I think they're just super-dark red wasps), etc., that build above ground nests under house eaves, under fenders of abandoned vehicles, in bushes (red wasps love bushes!), beneath that pan they you just picked up , etc.,. And, of course we've got hornets and locust killers. The yellow jackets around here, though, always seem to choose a ground nest. Of course, that could just be my experience and my neighbor down the road may battle them under his porch each year!