Making friends with the yellow jacket wasp.

As a child, yellow jackets were on my personal list of "species to eradicate from planet earth", along with fire-ants, mosquitoes, and jelly fish.   If you've ever stepped on a yellow jacket, barefoot, you can guess why I hated them so much.

Fast forward about half a century, and look at me now, sporting 3 very active nests right over my front door.   The porch here is my kitchen and I have to make a point to stand between the nests because they are so populated that clumps of wasps sometimes fall to the floor on chilly mornings.

Why?  Some people have dogs, I have wasps.   There's no drama allowed at my front door.   I would have a hoot if a thief tried to beat down my door.  

Well, the real reason is that I am trying to blend with nature.   I can take a sting if it happens,  I'm a big boy now.   And, these creatures do have a purpose, an important role in a permaculture food forest.   They keep web-worms in check.   There is a robust yellow jacket population all over the property, and barely any web-worms in the pecan trees.

The wasps nested in the apricot trees, under potting tables, and under the cover of my porch.   If you have pecan or fruit trees that are attacked by web-worms, try creating habitat for wasps.

How?  

1.   They need shelter, and they love a roof overhang.   At the next site, I'm going to build a small mock roof up in some of the trees to try and attract them.
2.   They need water.   My water buckets constantly attract bees, wasps, and butterflies of all sorts.   Its better to have something like a bird bath where they have an edge to land on.  Buckets tend to lead to drownings when i'm not around to rescue.
3.   They need nectar.   I've noticed them on goldenrod, sunflower, and lantana

what if there is an aggressive nest in a bad spot?

So, under my potting tables was a bad spot when I didn't see the nest.  I was fine until I dropped something that shook the nest on a hot day ... got two stings on bare leg.
Please don't use poison spray, that's not a permie thing to do.

Just wait for a cool morning, heat some grease/oil in a big cast iron skillet and set the searing hot pan under the nest.  Get a long pole and gently wiggle the nest until it falls into the pan.   If it is apocalypse time, you can eat them with your eggs.   Stingers are no bother after sautee

I pretend to be their friend, so that I can gain their trust, and then when they're not looking.....WHACK!

Every other bee-like creature gets a pass except for wasps and hornets.

I am good with everything that isn't a bald-faced hornet or a ground hornet. The bald faced ones are just too mean to abide and the ground horns are just no fun to discover.

I'm impressed by this making of friends. My fear of them is too visceral and rules me to some extent, even though I'm philosophically aligned with you. My stance is to leave them alone in places I trust they will leave me alone. But I do kill them when they nest by a door to the house or something.

I have them on my front porch too. With the same don't cause drama on my porch attitude.
I walk in and out of a door under them all summer.
They have a rain barrel right there, with a screen on top to stand on while they drink.
Resembling a (term I learned on here) "butterfly bath".

I can usually scoop my finger under them, coaxing them to climb on and escort them outside in the spring.
I get stung sometimes, usually if I set my hand on them.
One super aggressive one dive-bombed me last year, hit and run. Got away.
But I don't hold that against the others.

Found a nest in a metal funnel and moved it out by the broccoli.
Which was next to the grapes.
Big mistake, they covered the grapes when ripe.
I never got stung stealing their grapes, but I wouldn't do that again.

They seems to go into retirement toward the end of the season around here and just hang out and eat sweets,
instead of catching worms for the nest.

lolz @

craig howard wrote:

They seems to go into retirement toward the end of the season around here and just hang out and eat sweets,
instead of catching worms for the nest.

...for sure, lately they've been eating at some spoiling fruit I have out, acting a little tipsy