So, I'm outside watering some plants around the house, and after dousing it with water, I notice rather a large number of yellow jackets buzzing around the base of a clump of ornamental grass. Upon closer inspection I see a hole in the ground, and a bunch of bees coming and going. How I avoided getting stung, I don't know. I'm just glad I found it before the kids did.
This is in a flower bed within a foot or two of the foundation for the front porch, so I don't want to go nasty chemical warfare on them. How best to proceed?
My current plan goes something like this:
A) Wait until dark.
B) Pour mass quantities of something highly toxic to yellow jackets down the hole.
C) Run.
So what advice does the GRM crowd have to offer?
I've used carb cleaner successfully. Oh how about a flood?
Duke
SuperDork
6/10/11 11:30 a.m.
Get 2 or 3 spraybomb cans of hornet killer. After dark, start spraying into the hole from 6-8 feet away. Since they have to come out of the hole essentially single file, the hornet spray should have the knockdown power to keep you safe. I took out a big nest of locust wasps this way.
I remember once in my younger days I was riding my Honda dirtbike along a dirt road in the middle of nowhere outside South Bugberkeley, Pennsylvania. It happened to blow the plug out of the head, stranding me miles from anywhere. I cursed and chucked my helmet into the brush at the side of the road. There was a huge HUMMM and suddenly my helmet was literally yellow - complete enshrouded in yellow jackets. NOT one of the better afternoons of my life. Good luck and be careful.
tuna55
SuperDork
6/10/11 11:32 a.m.
kerosene and a match - works for fire ants and is way more satisfying. Don't use gasoline, it burns too fast and not for long enough.
I seem to recall a previous thread on a similar topic, someone suggested putting a strainer (like from your kitchen) over the hole, then apply copious amounts of bug killer.
You could do what I did a few years ago. Several cans of flying insect killer down the hole . . . still yellow jackets . . . a gallon of gasoline down the hole . . . still swarming . . . set fire to the gasoline, catch a pine tree on fire, rush around and get a hose hooked up and put the fire out (it almost got away from me), put many many gallons of water into the hole. The next morning there weren't as many yellow jackets swarming.
A side note: I didn't know they were there and ran over the hole with my lawn mower. I got stung several times including once on my eyelid. A guy that was helping me got stung once and went into anaphylactic shock. His heart stopped, he quit breathing, and even though he was a dark skinned African American, he turned blue. He had disappeared after he got stung and we found him colapsed under my carport. I grabbed his arm and pulled him off of the steps he had fallen on and he hit the concrete so hard it must have stimulated his body to get fired up again because he gasped for air. We called 911 and by the time they got there he was coming around. Scared the crap out of me.
I thought you didn't want to go all chemical warfare on them? What do you think something highly toxic is? LOL.
I've done exactly the same thing as Duke. In fact, if you buy hornet/wasp/bee killer, it essentially instructs you to do just that. It's never failed me, and no need to pollute the earth.
Yeah, due to proximity to the house, fire and flammable liquids most definitely will NOT be a part of the plan. Wasp and hornet killer sounds about right. I've got to go take inventory. A little sloshing around in one can might not be enough. LOL.
I like the strainer idea. Kill 'em all!
In reply to 1988RedT2:
One more thing about using the appropriate killers. Make sure there is absolutely no activity before you use them. Not only could it be detrimental to you, but if all the yellow jackets are not in the next, the ones that aren't will eventually attempt to rebuild.
Fill hole with "quickrete."
They'll never come in or out that hole again.
Whether or not the Foamy wasp & hornet killer will work may depend on how large the hive is. My awesome next door neighbor Bob (old funny dude) had a nest in his yard. Tried the old gas & strainer technique, then plugged the top of the hole with an empty 2 litre bottle.
The next day, I saw another bottle, and another, and another. They had multiple entry/exit points. He finally got the berkeleyers, and dug up the hives. There were 2 of them. Round, about the size of frisbees in diameter, but about 8" tall!
Wife (I'm deadly allergic) waited till winter and dug up one we had under a rosemary bush near the house. Same deal.
After dark set a shop vac near the hole, switch on, unplugged, with moth balls in the tank. After sun rise plug in the shop vac. As they come and go the vac sucks them up.
In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:
You have to kill them, or they'll dig their way out another way.
Dig up yard, replace entire property with a parking lot?
We have something that looks like bees coming out of a hole in the ground. They are not wasp shaped, more bee shaped. Are these yellow jackets or bees? How can you tell the difference? Do bees nest in the ground? I kinda would like to "save the bees," you know, to save the planet so we can have more global warming and all, but yellow jackets or hornets must die.
oh just pour some Jack Daniels down the hole....
Dr. Hess wrote:
We have something that looks like bees coming out of a hole in the ground. They are not wasp shaped, more bee shaped. Are these yellow jackets or bees? How can you tell the difference? Do bees nest in the ground? I kinda would like to "save the bees," you know, to save the planet so we can have more global warming and all, but yellow jackets or hornets must die.
Throw a small piece of meat near the hole. Honey bees will leave it alone, hornets/yellowjackets will try to eat it.
I was going to try to get a close-up picture of the hole with bees around it, so I threw some old fruit salad next to the hole. They keep going in and out right past it and don't pay it any attention. Not what I was expecting.
Grtechguy wrote:
oh just pour some Jack Daniels down the hole....
You shut your filthy whore mouth! 
Dr. Hess wrote:
We have something that looks like bees coming out of a hole in the ground. They are not wasp shaped, more bee shaped. Are these yellow jackets or bees? How can you tell the difference? Do bees nest in the ground? I kinda would like to "save the bees," you know, to save the planet so we can have more global warming and all, but yellow jackets or hornets must die.
Bumblebees will nest in the ground, but they are much bigger than honeybees and yellow jackets. Yellow jackets are skinnier, less hairy and yellower than honey bees. I've never seen honeybees nest in the ground.
Honey bees do not crawl out of holes in the ground, those are absolutelyyellow jackets. Bumble bees will ground nest, but not out in the open like yellow jackets, also a little harder to confuse with a yellow jacket.
Also worthy of note, there's never just ONE entrance to a yellow jacket nest. 
I had a yellow jacket nest in one of my flower beds years ago. I poured about a cup of the scented ammonia down the hole and dropped a 2x8 over the one hole I found. It worked like a charm. The reason I used this ammonia is because I sniffed it one day to see what it smelled like and it felt like it blew the top of the my head off.
When I was a youngster, I used to help my dad rob yellow jacket nests at night. He would take a railroad flare, strike it and stick into the hole. After a minute or two, he would take a stick and probe the ground looking for the nest. Dig it up real quick and brush off the stunned YJ and put the nest into a paper groocery bag. Put it in the refrigerated room at his work to really knock them out. Then he would take part of the nest fishing and use the larva for fish bait. It's amazing the trust a kid will put in his dad.
Man, you gotta really catch some good fish on yellow jacket larvae to make it worth all that.
Dr. Hess wrote:
We have something that looks like bees coming out of a hole in the ground. They are not wasp shaped, more bee shaped. Are these yellow jackets or bees? How can you tell the difference?
Yellow Jacket:
Bee:
Dr. Hess wrote:
Do bees nest in the ground?
Some do. There is a small ground variant of yellow jacket sometimes called "ground bee", too.
Ground (real) bee:
Dr. Hess wrote:
.... but yellow jackets or hornets must die.
Agreed.
