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From commentor Linda M:
Just recently, my SO and I were trimming some branches that were encroaching on our upper deck. When a branch fell on the floor of the deck, I (the all-observant one) noticed this beautiful, fuzzy caterpillar running for cover. I carefully placed it on some foliage in one of our plant containers on the deck and then ran and got the camera. I later looked it up on what’sthatbug.com. It is a tussock moth caterpillar. When it becomes a moth, it is apparently a very drab, gray color (although, gray is my favorite color). I was so pleased to be able to spot the caterpillar at this stage and then get a picture to share.
I also have a garden question about bees. I recently went out on the upper deck to water the two containers up there. It was mid-day, about 100 degrees, and oh, so sunny. When I poured water in the big container, I noticed a couple of bees flying around the plants. Then, as the water soaked into the container and out the bottom, I realized I had disturbed what is evidently two or three bee hives under that planter. There seemed to be hundreds of bees swarming around all of a sudden. I backed away, but didn’t get away fast enough. One of the very aggressive stingers managed to attach itself to my thigh and stung me. Luckily, it was just one–the others were still around the bottom of the container. Now, I’m afraid to even go out on that deck. I know I have to do something, but I don’t know what. Any suggestions?
Last time I thought this had happened to me, it turned out to be yellowjackets, or “paper wasps”, who’d built a nest in the punky wood under our front doorstep. Which was a relief, frankly, because nobody cared if we nuked them from orbit… Anybody got advice on relocating a bee colony safely?
Gretchen
One of my friends has a farm and wanted to start keeping bees. He had a friend who found a bee hive in the attic of the house he was remodeling. They hired a “bee whisperer” to relocate the bees. The bee whisperer has a buiness provinding bees to farmers – moves them around when pollination is needed. I’d think it more likely you have yellowjackets, though. Bees usually aren’t agressive because they die when they use their stingter. Yellowjackets will sting you and enjoy it. And if you have yellow jackets, nobody would blame you for nuking them – they’re naster. Call a pest specialist to deciide what to do.
Jewish Steel
Can they be urged to self-deport?
BruceJ
See if there are some professional beekeepers in your area, who can remove it. You’re lucky, the bees sound European from the behavior, Africanized bees would be much more aggressive…more like a hundred stings…
Tom
#2 – Best laugh for the day.
Google Bee Removal – Here in CO bees will be removed for free. Yellow-jackets for about 100.
LunaSea
I’d call in a pro, whether that’s a “bee whisperer” or exterminator. If they are yellow jackets, they can get real nasty, and the later in the season it gets, the more aggressive they get. I got stung by about a dozen of the little devils a couple years ago (in August) and it hurt like hell. Evidently I dared to get too close to the nest when I walked my trash out to the curb. Didn’t know the nest was there, and never even saw them coming, just felt the stinging. I ran into the house screaming and cursing like a mad woman, with three of them in my clothes. So yeah, call somebody soon.
Yutsano
Bees very rarely take up residence that low to the ground. If they were fuzzy and orange those are honeybees and yes you should move the colony. If they were smooth and yellow those are wasps, and the best solution is to nuke until genocide is achieved.
bemused senior
My sister keeps bees and is a functionary in her county beekeeper’s association. She has told me that she and others in that group help relocate hives. Maybe there’s a group like that by you. (Unfortunately, she lives in Virginia.)
Tom
Just thought of something. If the stinger was left in – Bee – no stinger – wasp.
delosgatos
I have it on good authority that the folks at not-so-bright-bart.com are appalled at the plan clearly extolled here to commit genocide against WASPs, and that they also will use the “European safe, African dangerous” ideas exposited in this thread as proof of lib’rul hypocrisy on race.
Well, maybe not *good* authority, but it’s not that far fetched…
tavella
@Yutsano:
There’s actually a number of native bees that really like the ground, and are endangered. They are trickier to relocate than honeybees, though.
auntie beak
it would be best if you could safely identify them. i don’t think it’s actual honeybees… seems unlikely they’d be, as an earlier commenter said, so low to the ground. if they’re a native pollinator, you’d want to save them. but if they’re wasps or yellow jackets, nuke away. any chance you can get a picture and identify them?
Bill D.
If they are native bees then it’s unlikely they would sting and it’s also unlikely that they would even be living in a large colony. My money is on yellowjackets.
jnfr
Yellow jackets are very aggressive and the only stinging insect whose nests we kill on sight.
RossInDetroit
Why the wasp hate? Just because they don’t produce a delicious condiment for our tea? I’m half serious here.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@RossInDetroit: Because they’re vicious and can make your yard unusable for anything. A nest of them in a high traffic area is a major problem.
RossInDetroit
Okay, here’s what I was taught: spray the hive when they’re dormant with 2 tablespoons of Dawn dish soap in a quart of water. That’s from Envirosafe, who handles our pest control at work. The smell confuses them and they don’t come back. the wasps, that is. Envirosafe keeps coming back as long as you pay them. It’
s late. I’m going to bed. I’ll look for the fact sheet on wasps & repost if I find it.
Gretchen
I once accidentally disturbed a yellowjacket nest in my compost heap. Son to dad: “Why is mom taking off her clothes on the porch?”. Because they swarmed up my sleeves and pantlegs and were stinging like the dickens. Nuke the suckers.
RossInDetroit
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I know. I have many stinging bugs in the yard, including these darling little metallic green bees (or wasps) that live in a ground hive and love the cactus blossoms. We all mutually ignore and get on fine. But I don’t have kids or outdoor events so I know that solution’s not for everyone.
ETA: scanning through work email all I find on bugs is an enzyme that kills mosquito larvae. That sounds interesting but not relevant here.
RossInDetroit
I have a bee story involving a motorcycle, a narrow road and my armpit. Another involving an open helmet face shield and merging onto the highway. And another about bicycling in slightly too loose shorts. Then there’s the time I kicked a cedar stump with a nest in it.
Geoduck
There’s a guy in my area (Seattle-ish) who collects yellowjackets and such alive for, I think, venom research. He comes around in a full protective suit and sucks up the whole hive population in a vacuum cleaner.
Pego
Native bees have much smaller hives or even just nests and often Can’t sting, but will obligingly pollinate for you. I wish you could have gotten a picture of them.
The catapillar, however, is a bit toxic. Normally just enough to give a rash. I am quite allergic to them and, as they say, “Have a history” with them.
Linda M
Thanks, everybody for your comments and suggestions. After checking a few Websites, I have determined these are yellow jackets (Vespula species no doubt), which I definitely want to get rid of. I feel lucky they did not choose the house to nest in. I have decided that I am too much of a scardy cat to go after them myself, so I’ll call Critter Control and let the professional do the dirty job. Thanks, again.
Svensker
Yellow jackets are skeery.
Paper wasps, at least the ones I’ve known, are very mellow fellows. They look vicious but we never had any problems with them and there were a lot of them in our suburban back yard.
RossInDetroit
If you identify any white faced hornets in your vicinity make tracks post haste elsewhere and plot their doom. Those bastards are nasty. I try not to kill anything I don’t have to but I won’t hesitate to blast a nest of those. At night. From a distance. With an escape route.
tybee
@Linda M:
as suggested earlier, soapy water will kill all of them.
if it’s a planter you can pick up and put into a bucket or something that will hold water, soap the water, move the planter at night. and be quick. :)
also, i’ve put liquid soap on top of the dirt in a planted pot, watered (or waited for rain) and wiped them out that way. the plants in that pot survived the experience but if they hadn’t, i wasn’t that attached to them anyway.
JPL
After being stung a dozen times a few years back, I found out how to kill them. At dawn or dusk they will leave their hole. Once you establish where it is, empty a can of wasp/hornet spray into the hole at dusk. You want as many of the little suckers in the hole as possible. Spray cans can shoot up to twenty feet away.
The soap solution causes them not to fly but doesn’t necessary kill them and is great for honey bees only.
RossInDetroit
I just remembered you can make a water trap for wasps with an empty 2L soda bottle. You cut and reconfigure the bottle into an inverted funnel and put water and bait in the bottom. They fly in and stay to drown.
This is recommended by our pest control professionals where the nest cannot be accessed directly.
Hers’ a link:http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-2-liter-soda-bottle-wasp-t-43290
CatHairEverywhere
We had a hive in our backyard a few years ago and I called a local bee guy (he leases his bees for pollination and sells honey) He came to our house and carried the hive out bare-handed. It was amazing. Bees are so beneficial- better to relocate than exterminate.
Don’t spray your hive yourself, either- call a professional!
Bill Arnold
@Linda M:
My grandfather helped my latent pyromania emerge by killing a yellowjacket nest with me. It was on a pathway (from house to vegetable garden and compost heap) so it was a real risk. The procedure was simple.
(1) Wait until after dark. There will be a couple of guard wasps but they can’t see in the dark.
(2) Pour a half-cup (to a cup) of gasoline down the yellow jacket nest hole, make triple sure the gas can is closed and not nearby, and throw a lit match down the yellow jacket nest hole.
This was upper East coast so no risk of fire.
Step 2 need not involve fire; you can use a can of wasp killer if you prefer. The key is that after dark, the yellow jackets can’t see.
If you have skunks in the area, there is a good chance you won’t need to do anything; a skunk will often rip apart a yellow jacket nest at night, and feast on the larva, maybe even on the adults.
Pego
Use the soap method mentioned, it works and it isn’t toxic. If you have a heavy coat and gloves and some screen netting you can drape over a hat and tuck into your jacket you will, in all practical ways, have a bee suit. Yellow jackets, I discovered by accident, will simply fall out of the air if you spray them with spray paint. Who knew that storing the Raid next to the paint would have it’s benefits? It worked better than the pesticide. I did not have a bee suit when I did these things, I just made sure the door was waiting open for me to run through and slap shut. I’ve gotten into bees since, and so I’ve gotten more equipment