My philosophy on bugs is simple: "If it moves, kill it."
I'll garden hose the nest away. I'm a safe distance, they don't always figure out where the water is coming from. They'll go and build another nest, but not often in the same place (certainly not a third time, it seems).
Incidentally, if you do get stung (and you're not the allergic type), spray the sting with ammonia or even Windex. It takes the pain and swelling away almost instantly. You can use bleach too, just not both at the same time.
My fiancee is irrationally and psychotically afraid of any stinging insect, so I'm usually forced to commit bugicide on a regular basis.
I always filed yellow jackets and hornets and that kind of thing under "animals that only evolved because of humans" and serve absolutely no purpose in the food chain, like skunks. What eats a wasp?
We have honey bees in our yard, so ants and wasps are kept under control.
Keith wrote:
We have honey bees in our yard, so ants and wasps are kept under control.
I didn't know that honey bees can control the ant population. Are they predators or do they just exhaust the food supply?
Keith, did you put the hive there or did you just get lucky?
I tend to not mess with wasps. Ground bees and anything but a honey bee that builds a large nest in a bush and is territorial gets the potatoe gun with a load of rocks.
Often the skunks find the ground nests before I do anyway.
Sorry, we keep the ants and wasps under control to protect the bees. I wasn't clear.
We have four hives that we put there. I've helped harvest a swarm in the past, that was an amazing thing to see.
