Is this the mud wasp that kills yellowjackets?

Isn't this the type of wasp or hornet nest that gets rid of yellow jackets? I would keep it.  What do you think? And what good do yellow jackets serve?  Permaculturalistically speaking that is?

Yellowjackets eat pests and serve as pollinators.

   The wasp like creature that came in and out of my house building up small mud structures made small one wasp strutures. Bumble bees seem to fill holes full of mud. The mud structures built in my house by a wasp like creature stuck out like small tubes or jars rather than filing up any holes. Is the nest in the photo paper like or mud like.
   I post a photo of nest made by solitary wasp that make clay nests.
   The thing you can see behind the nest is the tail of a geko also taking refuge in the same small space the wasp used for her nests, so here is a photo of the geko. agri rose macaskie.

     Another photo of clay wasps nests. These nest are all inside my house but no one has noticed them but me, I saw the wasps make some of them so i could not help but know they were there the wasp comes in and out so often you are bound to notice her.
     One remarkable thing about these wasps is that they did not get taken in by windows panes and try to find a way through them. They ignored shut windows, the first nest is made just under the frame of a window and the wasp making it went in and out the house by other means. So intelligent insects these wasps.
    I one read that wasps are sensitive to too much noise, it totally disorientates them, so if you want to drive them crazy play loud music.
     Also my experience in the garden is that if a wasp seems very menacing then I am clearing away weeds from near his or her nest, so i go away, if that is not the case they dont seem agressive so if you think this wasp is going for you move to another bit of the garden. Of course if you sit on them or some such they will also get agressive.
The paper nests are beautiful. agri rose macaskie.

I believe that yellowjackets are part of the dead body cleanup crew, as well as pest predators and pollinators.

Another thing I use them for is a teaching opportunity! You can really challenge fixed thinking in other people when you refuse to participate in a yellowjacket freakout.

I know that wasps and yellowjackets are thought to avoid each other's territories, but I don't know whether they actively try to kill each other or just have an I-won't-live-where-those-guys-live attitude.

Looks more like a paper structure, which are made by yellow jackets and hornets. It could be the home of bald-faced hornets, which I have watched eat yellow jackets. I respect yellow jackets, but they are a pain at this time of year in Oregon. Could be about over for this season though; I think I saw some queens looking for overwintering spots today.

I like the idea of taking my kitchen compost out to the garden to cover with mulch, or lightly cover with dirt.  All the yellow jackets feed there and leave our picnic area alone for the most part.

While many flee from them in terror I love my yellowjackets. I've seen then entirely clear a patch of cabbage worms with very little help from other predators. I just keep an eye on them to see where the entrance hole to their underground nest is. So long as I keep my distance from that they are not aggresive. In other parts of my garden they ignore me completely. I've read that since I am neither predator nor prey they don't "see" me at all. I make no impresion on them. Near the nest however I become a possible predator so they "see" me again.

Kelly,

What you have there is, I believe, a picture of the nest of Dolichovespula maculata AKA the bald faced hornet.

Their sting ain't no joke. In fact, it's downright legendary. I had a cousin that got stung twice on the side of his head. Poor boy was in pitiful shape for several days.

I've known guys that would, when they happened upon a nest, come back in a truck with a .22 rifle. They would roll the window down enough to allow them to fire the rifle at the nest and as soon as the round broke would withdraw the muzzle and quickly roll up the window and watch the enraged hornets as they would crash into the window in a vain attempt at retribution. Never did it myself and can't verify the truthfulness of the story but I've gotten much milage from the story lo these many years of sitting around campfires.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald-faced_hornet

any creature has it's role in nature, wasps are predators and scavengers, in my land i have a lot of paper nests and they're not a problem unles you step on them
they are really tolerant and patient and even if you get very close to the nest they fly around you as a warning rather than sting. I think they only sting as a last  resort.
this summer i've been hand cutting down thistles with a machete in the area where they have their nests, to avoid bush fires, and only got stung 2 times... I just have had  pay some atention to the warning flybys cause nests are dificult to see...
This are how nests look like. They are of polistinae family, eusocial wasps.


And here's a pic of the dry thistle bush where they use to build the nests


Thistles are mainly Silibum marianum and they are up to 6 or 7 foot tall

Most sarracenias (trumpet pitchers) are good at eating up wasps and flies, so are useful near areas you want to keep wasp-free. There are several different species and loads of cultivars, but only two main forms: those with tall (12-36") vertical trumpets and flowers held well below the trumpet's top, and those with squat horizontal pitchers and flowers held well above the pitcher. The best ones are those with tall vertical trumpets as they rely on chemical digestion to break down their food, whereas the squat types use a combination of mosquito larvae and bacteria in rainwater, making them both less efficient and a source of unwanted mozzies. The tall trumpet type aren't frost-hardy so they're best grown in pots and taken indoors in winter. As an added bonus they have very unusual and attractive flowers which encourage bees.

I have been looking for ways to get rid of a nest of yellow jackets in my flower garden but when i woke up this morning they were gone. Their combs were place to the left of a hole that was about a foot deep and three inches wide...there were no animal tracks around.
Any ideas about what happened?

Chuck Eiwen wrote:I have been looking for ways to get rid of a nest of yellow jackets in my flower garden but when i woke up this morning they were gone. Their combs were place to the left of a hole that was about a foot deep and three inches wide...there were no animal tracks around.
Any ideas about what happened?

Skunk