Yellowjacket Apocalypse

Remember the yellowjacket nest? Well, my mother-in-law was as good as her word. She killt them. She's pretty good at it. What you have to do is go out to the nest after dark. The yellowjackets are all but dormant after sunset and less likely to swarm and sting. So she went out with a small bottle of gasoline and poured some into the entrance to the nest. She didn't drench the ground or anything. Just poured a little in there.

She repeated the process for three days.

After the third day she went out and to check the nest for activity. What she found was that instead of a small entrance tunnel buzzing with yellowjackets she saw a large hole in the ground!

The yellowjackets were obviously dead. Where the nest had been there was now a deep hole. Something had come to the now-vacant nest and had dug it up for the grubs in the combs.

Typically, there are three animals who would do this. Yellowjacket grubs are pure fat and protein. Some mammals like them so much that they'll risk getting stung severely to feast on the grubs. The calorie reward outweighs the pain. Black bears have been known to travel through the forest digging them up and feasting on the nests.

But this hole, while decent, was certainly not made by a bear. So, the three local critters at the top of my list are: raccoons, skunks, and foxes.

Whatever dug that hole was really good at it. Raccoons can dig, but I've never seen one construct such an efficient excavation. Skunks are exceptional diggers, but Faye said she never smelled a skunk around, and they're hard to miss. So my guess is that the nest was dug up and consumed by a gray fox. There are lots of them around that part of the county. I've seen them, mainly in the evening.

No more yellowjacket nest. Faye killt the adults and this left the grubs vulnerable. Of course they'd have died anyway without the colony to feed and care for them. Or it's even possible the same gas fumes that killed the adults did in the grubs.

Must not have affected the flavor, though, because there was not one grub left.

Hole where the nest had been.

There were bits of yellowjacket nest scattered around.

You can see that the grubs were all gone...gobbled up.

Preparations with Detours to Yellowjackets and Velvet Ants

Carole and I went to our travel trailer to get it ready for our upcoming holiday trip to the mountains of southwestern Virginia. We scrubbed up the Casita, stocked it with groceries, fired up the refrigerator so that it'll already be cold when we head out in a few days. We made sure all of our spare clothes were in the closet in case we run into any cool or rainy weather (jackets, vests, hoodies, raincoats, etc).

While I was dragging out things like power cords and water hoses and brushes and soap, I noticed the local critters. I always have an eye open for the wild things. Didn't see much in the way of birds or little mammals, but I did see some of the little creatures of Mother Nature.

First thing I saw as I was setting up the hoses to wash the trailer was a Velvet ant marching across the parking lot. They're hard to miss. They are a vibrant red that shows up against just about any surface. Now, many small animals want to remain camouflaged and as anonymous as possible. Not the Velvet ant. Its bright colors serve the same purpose as a rattlesnake's rattles: STAY AWAY! I WILL HURT YOU!

The Velvet ant when I first noticed her.

Leave me alone, human!

I'm out of here! Don't follow!

 
Velvet ants may look like ants and superficially they may act like ants...but they are not ants. They are, in fact, wingless wasps. And they have a potent sting. You do NOT want to be stung by one of these large ladies. I've never been zapped by one, but I have spoken to folk who have, and they measure the wallop right up there with the worst of the big hornets. They're also VERY fast. Extremely fast. They seem to constantly be in a hurry and you don't really want to put one in a position of having to sting you.

I took my photos from a distance.

Next, Carole's mother told me to be careful for the yellowjacket nest near the swing where she goes to relax. She couldn't use it because the last time she sat there she noticed a yellowjacket nest at her feet with an active stream of the little wasps flying in and out of the tunnel opening. So, of course, I went to investigate.

The entrance to the hive. Hard to see.

Sure enough, there is a large colony of yellowjackets there. They were quite active while I was watching and I made sure not to get in the way of the entrance to the hive while I took photographs with the telephoto lens on my camera.

In a few days she's going to have them killed. I tried to talk her out of it, explaining that they'll be gone in a few weeks on their own and there's no real need to destroy them. But she's determined to have them killed. She has lost the use of her swing, so she does have a point. Me...I'd let them run their course and go dormant. But I'm just strange that way.

The hive was very busy. One thing about it was that either arriving or leaving, the jellowjackets did both extremely quickly. They did not tarry at the entrance.

This one was the lookout. She never left that spot the whole time I was there.

Reminds me of the Zanti Misfits.