Yellow jackets...

What about diatomaceous earth (food grade)...it will kill anything with an exo skeleton (wasps, ants, spiders...) none of which I want in my house.
I recently put a barrier of D.E. around my house, & it significantly reduced the number of ants coming into my house.

If it were me, first, I would contact someone to remove the nest(s), then use the D.E.
You may need to paint the surface they attatched the nest to, because they could come back.

I had wasps in a house I lived in a few years ago. There were several smaller nests up in the eaves of my house.
I called these guys http://www.alphaecological.com/locat...ol-washington/
they came out & took down the nests, sprayed the surface with something, & advised us to paint the surface so they don't come back to the scent of their former nest.

Wasps are nasty & I certainly understand safety of your family being a priority. I hope you're able to get rid of them.

Two things come to mind about difficult people: (some of you have heard this before)
1-trying to reason with some people is like a cat trying to bury a turd in a cement floor
(there's a visual for you)
2-do not feed the trolls....they're like gremlins

Originally Posted by kgmax1228

you don't know me-so don't judge me

I can see all I need to know by how you act here. So yes, I am judging you.

You have three days to develop an attitude adjustment while on this site. Although you may not really be a troll, you are acting close enough to one for me to question whether your further participation is wanted here.

If the three days off don't make any impression on you, and your actions when you come back have not changed for the better, then I will try a much longer amount of time to see if that has any noticeable effect.

Well, it seems kind of odd, but it appears that the yellow jackets have somehow become greatly reduced in numbers. Maybe that choice of a nesting site wasn't all that good for them. But I've only seen two or three of them when I went out looking for at the nest. Perhaps having those flower pots around the nest hole was important to them.

Beats me, but I'll be keeping an eye on that area to see what happens.

Of course, the downside to this is that if they have moved, WHERE have they moved to? Not too keen on the idea of finding a new nesting hole when I step into it....

Originally Posted by nwheather

What about diatomaceous earth (food grade)...it will kill anything with an exo skeleton (wasps, ants, spiders...) none of which I want in my house.
I recently put a barrier of D.E. around my house, & it significantly reduced the number of ants coming into my house.

If it were me, first, I would contact someone to remove the nest(s), then use the D.E.
You may need to paint the surface they attatched the nest to, because they could come back.

I had wasps in a house I lived in a few years ago. There were several smaller nests up in the eaves of my house.
I called these guys http://www.alphaecological.com/locat...ol-washington/
they came out & took down the nests, sprayed the surface with something, & advised us to paint the surface so they don't come back to the scent of their former nest.

Wasps are nasty & I certainly understand safety of your family being a priority. I hope you're able to get rid of them.

Thanks for the link, I'm reading it now.

The D.E. creates a physical reaction that kills the pests, instead of a chemical reaction. It is ground up shells, that cuts through the exo skeleton & dehydrates them.
Farmers will use it to worm their livestock by feeding it to their livestock. I got the container of food grade D.E. from a local farm Co-op.

I have some DE from co-op, but was cautioned to put it around edges in raised beds, between liner and wood. They said it would harm the worms in raised beds. I have earwigs really bad, they just thrive on my lettuce and basil. The yellow jackets are under the eves of the house, got rid of them in one area last year now they moved to the other side of the house.
I really want to be organic but sheesh this is getting harder or the bugs are more resistant to my efforts.

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Well, it seems kind of odd, but it appears that the yellow jackets have somehow become greatly reduced in numbers. Maybe that choice of a nesting site wasn't all that good for them. But I've only seen two or three of them when I went out looking for at the nest. Perhaps having those flower pots around the nest hole was important to them.

Beats me, but I'll be keeping an eye on that area to see what happens.

Of course, the downside to this is that if they have moved, WHERE have they moved to? Not too keen on the idea of finding a new nesting hole when I step into it....

You know...Nikolaas Tinbergen won a Nobel Prize for his animal behavior research. Once such project was moving visual cues that surrounded wasp nests. He found that the individual wasps had difficulty in coming back to the nest if objects were rearranged or moved. Perhaps something similar is going on here?

Originally Posted by MohrSnakes

You know...Nikolaas Tinbergen won a Nobel Prize for his animal behavior research. Once such project was moving visual cues that surrounded wasp nests. He found that the individual wasps had difficulty in coming back to the nest if objects were rearranged or moved. Perhaps something similar is going on here?

My dad once told me when he worked in a turkey plant (raised turkey's for meat), they would move the water/food dishes and they noticed the turkeys wouldnt eat or drink.
Youd have to move the dishes back or else they'd starve.

Maybe thats kind of the case here?
Another thing you can try that my mother in law did. She painted the eves of her house that light blue sky color. The wasps wont land on it or come around because they think its the sky and 'cant' land on it.
So you can try painting your walls blue

The yellow jackets really won't be too bad until the fall, their numbers in the nest have hit critical mass then and they are all feeding up to make stores for the winter.
When I was trucking they would be all over your truck while fueling at truckstops getting the dead bugs on trucks. Wish you the best finding it and getting rid of them how ever you see fit. The DE is some good stuff just don't know how good it works after it gets wet, someone may know.