July 20, 2012
Donating our yellow jackets to science
Every now and then living near a major research university provides some immediate advantages.
Angelika noticed a growing nest of yellow jackets under the eaves of our house. It's been a few years since we had lots of them, but this nest was probably softball size and you could see a small army of wasps flying around by the gutter, closer to our back door than made me comfortable.
I was about to run out and buy a spray bottle of insecticide, though I hate doing that. Spraying this side of the house isn't likely to contaminate the beehives on the other side, but the bees have enough trouble. Fortunately, I remembered a poster I'd seen at the Varna Community Center, and ran down to look at it.
Seeking yellow jackets and wasps.
I emailed Kevin Loope, and he wrote back quickly. He scouted out the nest, and it would work, so he came back with a lot more equipment. Angelika got a series of pictures through one of our windows. (Sorry - I definitely need to clean the storm window!)
Collecting the yellow jackets with a vacuum.
Collecting the nest itself.
Taking the nest away.
I suspect this is a limited-time offer, and I'm not sure how many nests they really need, but it was great to have a better solution than spraying toxic chemicals on my house. (I suspect that much of the blurry stuff on that window is from past sprayings, too.)
Posted by simon at July 20, 2012 2:31 PM in Cornell , my houseNote on photos