I recommend just a very small amount of gas in a jar - just cover the bottom. After dark, invert the jar over the nest and grind it into the ground to get a good seal. leave jar in place overnight. By morning, the YJ's will have eaten their final meal. -james
Ha. I want to feed them so they survive. I removed them from an outside light fixture and want to keep them. I gave them a meat scrap so I will see what they do with that. Some sites say that the queen leaves in the fall and the rest of the nest dies off but maybe they are still around because of our warm weather this year.
I remember my dad gassing them then lighting them up. I recall one time a huge fireball shot out and barely missed him. It was like a huge roman candle. But I learned there is no need to burn them and it takes very little gas. -james
I have no reason to kill them. I wouldn't have even know they were there if it wasn't for fixing the light fixture.
Yellowjackets will eat insects from the garden and it is important to maintain some diversity around here. There are plenty of other wasps getting killed, I'll do what i can to save a few.
I got a few paying jobs to remove baldface hornet nests last summer and I managed to keep the larva of one nest and reposition in my yard. The hornets built another nest around the disk of larva.
They eat any kind of meat/ insect. Then feed them honey/ honey diluted in water. Honeywater doesn't spoil as fast as sugarwater. I have a friend who keeps them so anymore questions ask me i should know.
They seem to die off around here, and I am in Texas. You must be having a really warm winter! (if you need any more yj's just let me know, I'll ship them up next September.
I think you are asking the wrong group of people for yellowjacket care. Most of us are beekeepers in here and hate hornets, and yellowjackets more. You need to find a bunch of hornet huggers to talk to.
JeremyNJ, there are certainly no shortage of them here in east TN! I have never seen so many yellowjackets or Hornets. I have battled with them ever since I moved here. I have not noticed any reduction of bugs either? There are plenty of bugs and spiders, bugs I have never seen before. If you run low come pay me a visit you can have as many as you want!
From what I can tell a lot of beekeepers are really successful with feeding the hornets by simply having bee hives. In fact I have seen some pictures that indicate it is a really good method. they feed hornets by the hundreds.
Now why is it that it never seems things like Hornets get a plague like Varroa or SHB?
They do! Yellow jackets have very low success rates. In spring 80% die in the founding stage. Lots of the queens try to take over each others nests and fight to the death. The few lucky ones get parasites. There are parasitic wasps and such that kill them. If they get lucky and survive they reproduce exponentially. Up to a few thousand. So out of all the queens you see in the spring only a handful are successful. Most of the yellow jackets you see in late summer are actually from one to two colonies only. Its just they produce tons of workers when successful.
If you want to feed your yellow jackets you should get some honey bees.
Then your yellow jackets will be very happy
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Beesource Beekeeping Forums
1.8M posts
54.7K members
Since 1999
A forum community dedicated to beekeeping, bee owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about breeding, honey production, health, behavior, hives, housing, adopting, care, classifieds, and more!