One evening a few years ago, a cloud of yellow jacket wasps swarmed and stung me when I walked in my backyard garden. I ran inside, to nurse my many wounds and sob into my gin and tonic. The YJ’s were defending their secretly constructed, massive underground nest just the other side of my garden fence.
At dusk, the yellow jackets slowed down. I poured garbage cans of ash slurry into their underground hive. But their underground redoubt drank down 30 gallons of slurry without a burp. Instead yellow jackets burst from another secret entryway and stung the living daylights out of me. Again.
Finally I waited until waaaay after dusk, put on my rhino hide protective gear, and poured ready mix concrete over their hive entrances.
Given my history with Yellow Jackets, how did I end up running a hospice for hundreds of them?
Wiki:
Yellowjacket or Yellow jacket is the common name in North America for predatory social wasps of the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula. Members of these genera are known simply as "wasps" in other English-speaking countries. Most of these are black and yellow like the eastern yellowjacket Vespula maculifrons and the aerial yellowjacket Dolichovespula arenaria; some are black and white like the bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata. Others may have the abdomen background color red instead of black. They can be identified by their distinctive markings, their occurrence only in colonies, and a characteristic, rapid, side-to-side flight pattern prior to landing. All females are capable of stinging. Yellowjackets are important predators of pest insects.
Every Spring, the Yellow Jacket (hereinafter YJ) Queens emerge from underground hibernation, and establish new nests. Each Nest could house thousands of wasps.
We set out YJ traps in late winter, hoping to kill the emerging queen(s) before they can nest in our yard. The YJ traps emit a seductive scent; the YJs can enter the traps but cannot leave. The YJs haven’t nested in our yard for years.
They got a good start on this one a few Springs ago, but a high pressure hose persuaded them to move on.
We cohabit with the remaining YJs. Of course, stray YJs still drop by whenever we eat outside. Sometimes we’ll set some food a distance away, but near a YJ trap, to lure them away from our dinner plates.
Every Fall, Our pears fall. The YJs devour any damaged fruit.
This year, I spotted a skunk eating fallen pears one evening in the Frog Mitigation Area (FMA) , under the Comice pear tree. The FMA contains fishless ponds where frogs breed.
I don’t want skunks. I’m swiftly disposing of fallen pears, using a long handled net for removing pears hosting YJS.
In the Fall, the YJ worker wasps die off every year; only the hibernating Queen survives the winter. I marvel that without a surviving collective consciousness, they can still find my yard, pears, and outside dinner table every summer, year after year, although the Queen hasn’t nested here again.
Dear God, some of the pears I cleaned up had a dozen YJs on them. There might be 50 YJs in my yard, total. If 50 YJs arrived at once while I tried to eat outside, I’d call in an air strike.
An artist noted their predatory grasp.
According to Wiki, a single nest could harbor thousands of wasps. So even a distant nest might dispatch hundreds of dying YJs to my fallen pears. And from my yellow jacket hospice, the wasps shuffle off of the mortal coil.
You’ve been reading The Daily Bucket,
a nature refuge.
We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and such, and note life’s patterns spinning around us.
Phenology is how we take earth’s pulse.
We discuss what we see in each Bucket.
Each note links our surroundings to life’s cycles, and adds to our understanding. Please comment about your own natural area, and include photos if possible. We love photos!
To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow, and join to write a Bucket of your own observations.
Thanks for reading;
Now its your turn--
What have you noted in your area or travels? Please post your observations and general location in your comments. I’ll check back by lunchtime.
Be sure to peruse Meteor Blade’s valuable "Spotlight on Green News & Views,” every Saturday at 5pm Pacific Time and every Wednesday at 3:30 Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Please recommend and comment in the diary.