Yellowjackets!

There's a shed building on the farm, not much used in the summer: warm during the day from its east-facing doors, and full of crevices, angles, and protected spots. Basically, an ideal wasp habitat. I'd been noticing some wasps taking up residence, but...I had other vegetable-related priorities during the height of the season. Recently I went in there, and it was a museum of local wasp species. There were the unthreatening black mud wasps, the larger brown wasps with the painful sting, and—unusually—yellowjackets tracing a path in and out of the shed to a nest hidden behind a part of the wall, invisible.

Wasps are a standard farm problem: this is a story about solving that problem with standard farm methods to dispatch a harmful concentration of insects—although not the typical pests one might think of needing to control on a vegetable farm...or the typical methods.

I've worked outside enough to learn the habits of wasps, and what to do about them: to do a quick visual check on the likely places in a shed where there may be nests; to step back after moving a cardboard box, or a metal piece of machinery, or anything enclosed that becomes warm from the sun; to differentiate the normal flight of wasps at work from their aggressive flight when their nest is disturbed. I've learned how closely to approach--calmly, carefully--and how quickly wasps can move once they've decided to sting. I've learned about the usual species, too: to jump back from the papery flutter of the brown wasps, but to merely note the shuffle of wings of the mud wasps inside their tunnels and keep an eye out. Yellowjackets, though, are a species with which I have little experience.

What was clear, though is that these wasps needed to go. While every wasp nest I'd seen before was perhaps hand-sized with wasps simply sitting on it, guarding, this hidden yellowjacket nest had “beehive” levels of wasps flying in and out every couple seconds, doing their work and returning home to build their nest--and their population. I had never seen such a steady stream of yellowjackets coming and going: appearing from a particular crack in the boards and flying off, and a similar stream returning through the same crack to what was, presumably, an extremely large and well-developed nest inside the wall.

This was a problem. Not the usual sort of problem needing solving on the farm, but a problem nonetheless—and one that could be tackled in the same way as the ones with which I have more experience. For getting out of a typical mechanical jam, for example, I'll think of all the ways that force can be applied (ratchet strap, come-along, spring, jack, hydraulic cylinder, turnbuckle, bolt & nut, etc.) and eventually find something that will solve the problem at hand. For wasps, I thought of all the options I've used and came up with...wasp spray. And dismantling the shed so that the nest would be accessible...thereby no doubt becoming swarmed with hundreds of yellowjackets.

I needed more ideas for this new problem. I turned to the internet. Reddit comments noted that “yellowjackets are A-holes,” stinging unprovoked and without warning—although I'm not sure that these reports aren't from careless people who've gotten too close, I wasn't about to chance it. What did seem to be true is that when one yellowjacket stings, it releases a pheromone causing the rest to follow, swarming the perceived threat to their nest. I wasn't interested in being stung even once, but this was more serious: I had an idea how many wasps there might be in there, and I knew that that many stings can be life-threatening even for a non-allergic person. Other people on the internet reported having been stung through clothes, through jeans—but that two layers would stop them. Possibly they are attracted to black clothes. (Or is it yellow clothes. Or floral patterns?).

And as for what to do about them, other creative possibilities were soapy water (still, needs a clear shot), gasoline to burn them out of the ground (it's the internet, after all), and then I found one person suggesting...a shop vac, with accompanying video of a long vacuum hose doing just what you'd expect to wasps flying by. Reports were that even for a large nest, running the vacuum for several hours would suck up 95% of the yellowjackets, dispatching them with soapy water in the shop-vac canister. And I remembered, then, that I'd used the shop-vac for this purpose before: not for aggressive yellowjackets, but for the less aggressive mud wasps (a story for another time). 

On a cool morning recently, when wasps are least active, I put on two pairs of work pants, a thick long-sleeve shirt, a flannel-lined jacket, winter headwear, boots, and welding gloves. And I brought my wallet, in case I got in too deep and needed my ID for responding EMS. I was taking no chances. Moving slowly, to keep both myself and the wasps calm, I first dispatched the visible nests of brown wasps with a spray. Then--still moving slowly, calmly, carefully, so as not to attract attention--I gathered the shop-vac tubes, hose, and machine. I filled the canister with soapy water up to the level of the filter, set everything up, backed up as far as possible, and nudged the end of the vacuum tube right up to where the yellowjackets had been coming and going through the wall to their nest.

It was still only morning, with little wasp activity, but I was ready for the test. I turned the switch to send power to the vacuum, maintaining my distance. A wasp flew into the shed, aiming towards its usual landing spot, but then – shoop!! – disappeared down the hose! I went for a closer look – each wasp that returned followed its typical trajectory, and then – shoop!! – once it got within a couple inches of the end of the hose, made a perfect little arc following the air currents down the tube!

Several test-case yellowjackets successfully dispatched, I shut the vacuum off and came back later when the nest was more active, once it had warmed up. Just as before, the wasps were tracing their path in and out of the nest in a steady line, with the efficient choreography of planes at an airport. I turned on the vacuum, and watched in awe as such a simple method – and one which I might have dismissed as too fantastical had I not read about its success – proved to work so elegantly, so cleanly, and so obviously: every few seconds, a yellowjacket came or went, and most ended up down the tube. I left the setup running for a few hours, as directed, and upon returning found the stream of wasps had stopped.

That night I got more confident and looked with a flashlight between the boards of the shed – closer than I ever would have dared before – and saw the outlines of just the giantest, most massive wasp nest I could ever imagine. And on it, still, a few wasps remaining. The following day I ran the vacuum a little more, for good measure. 

As for what to do with the nest, I had imagined carefully disassembling the shed to get a clear shot at the nest to spray it for good. The internet, though, says that yellowjacket nests die over winter, except the queen, who doesn't reuse the same nest next year. I figure I shouldn't get overconfident, and that if I don't see any wasps, it's now safe to work in the shed and that'll be plenty good enough until winter. Even if it's likely possible now to open it up...I don't think I'll test my luck by tearing into a yellowjacket nest on purpose!

Although I assumed success it turned out that this was only Part 1…Part 2 is Mechanical Destruction, a story for the future!