“All good things are wild, and free.” Henry David Thoreau
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Artie Scott wrote:Could you leave them till hard frost, then harvest the sweet potato after they are dead? Or do you need to access the area for weeding etc... before then?
Jay Angler wrote:Wasps are incredible hunters for grubs and caterpillars. It they aren't being too aggressive, as Artie suggested, could you just leave them be? I had some ground nesters in a raised mint bed last year and they caused me no harm. I've had some in external nests which were in a problem location and sent Hubby after dark with a paper bag which he just surrounded the nest with and then stomped on it.
(I'm very reactive to wasp stings, but not deadly reactive - so we will deal with a problem nest, but try to live and let live if the nest is safe and the wasps aren't out looking for trouble.)
Artie Scott wrote:Could you leave them till hard frost, then harvest the sweet potato after they are dead? Or do you need to access the area for weeding etc... before then?
gretchen barton wrote:We used to have them in old gopher holes , Try peppermint based foaming spray AT NIGHT well after all wasps are in nest in ground . Bury any possible entrance with dirt or sand after spraying- good luck!
“All good things are wild, and free.” Henry David Thoreau
Don't fall for the My-Place-Is-Special, It-Won't-Happen-Here Syndrome.
Devoured by giant spiders without benefit of legal counsel isn't called "justice" where I come from!
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Cristo Balete wrote:Just to get more specific, are they paper wasps who have put a paper nest under the plastic? Or are they hornets that have a hole in the ground just beyond the plastic? Or are they hornets that have their opening in your mound? And how far under the plastic is the new opening?
Animals that yank open hornet nests do it at night, in the dark, with little peril to themselves, and so can you.
If the new opening is not too far under the plastic, can you hold up the plastic with a 2x4 while drowning them with a full force hose of water? Either completely soak a paper nest, or fill the ground nest with water, really saturate it. They might have a second, backdoor opening, drowning them from there as well. Wait an hour or so, go back with a shovel or a hoe and dig the opening larger while holding the hose on it. Leave it as wide open as possible. Pin the plastic up for a few days. You could even shovel more dirt on that end, make it too deep for them to dig their way out.
It's surprising just how winding the opening trail is to the actual nest, so it may be in there a ways.
A few of them will hang around for a couple days trying to put things back together, but they won't be able to, and will give up. Then find the nest and expose any eggs that are in it.
And if you're not allergic, they say bee stings are good for arthritis :-)
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