wasp nest squishing, anyone?

[Breaddrink]

So we've got an absolute monster wasp nest in the eaves of our roof in the back yard.
It's probably the biggest one I've seen so far in this country (looks to be about the size of a basketball, maybe a little larger), but this in mind the wasps seem to be flying from a great height and away somewhere and don't seem to be bothering us locals :D

I was going to wait until winter and just scrape it down, but a neighbour kind of nicely complained to me at the weekend so I guess I need to do something.

Heres the thing, while I wouldn't normaly consider tackling this myself for the sake of safety, the nest is right next to an upstairs bathroom window (maybe 10 feet to the right if I looked out of that window), and it got me thinking. I can see the opening to the nest from there and the window itself is great cover...If I could simply stick a nozzle from a pressure tank out the open corner of the window and spray the relevant chemicals onto it, it seems to me that it would be completely safe and even a very angry colony wouldn't be able to get at me. If done at night even less chance of unpleasantness.

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing?

I've seen a seeming rise of popularity in DIY pest control and equipment/chemical rentals.
Not sure entirely what I'm asking here...Just kind of shooting the breeze in case anyone has some advice.
I'm thinking the nest is too large for the cans of spray, and again something I could put into a garden pressure sprayer (or something rented) would be a lot easier to apply in this situation as the wand would give me the extention out of the window with a tiny amount of the window needing to be open and sealed up leaving me safe inside.

Any thoughts?

Rob.

[mrohde]

Please get someone to take video . . .

[Postman]

That sounds like it could be a hornet's nest. Is there a single hole in the bottom. If so, it is probably a hornet's nest and that is where you would want to put the spray unless you just knock it down from your window position. They will all be in the nest after dark so you would be able to get most of them.

It might just be easier to knock it down in which case they will abandon the nest. Some high pressure squirting will tear the nest apart and guarantee their departure. I had a hornets nest in a white pine a few years ago. I made myself a bee suit out of a thick plastic rain suit I had and used my garden hose to destroy it.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/no...orn-yj.htm#top

[deathwish2]

Definitely do it at night . . . they all go home then.

A good soaking of aerosol hornet/wasp spray one night (the opening plus saturate what you can of the outside of the nest) . . . followed by a check the next day for any activity . . . then you can knock 'er down with a hose/pressure washer. ;)

[Breaddrink]

Do you think the cans of stuff will still work when they're this large?

I'm pretty sure they're yellowjackets, because they're striped yellow/black and not completely black.

Just to see, I tried out a home made trap I read up on last night and, believe it or not it works.
I tried a method where you hang a scrap of ham over a bowl of water with detergent in it.
Doesn't seem to work to the extent where it will diminish the nest I don't think, but it's been an interesting experiment.

Rob.

[Breaddrink]

Please, no bets.

Rob.

[deathwish2]

I took out a nest last year that had been inside my garden shed using the spray cans . . . it was about 9-10" across and hung just as much . . . it was in a tricky spot as well . . . in between the joists over the loft of the shed . . . when I went back to take it down, I could not use a hose (indoors), so I put a wide snow shovel under the nest and scraped it off with the longest thing I had . . . a pole pruner.

The spray does a good job soaking through the outer walls of the nest.

At about $4 it's definitely worth a shot before you get too involved with garden sprayers and buying enough checmicals to take out two dozen nests. ;)

[dcarter636]

Yellow jacket wasp nests can be killed very effectively with just about any kind of petroleum based stuff. I use WD-40 with the little tube attached to shoot a stream. Just wait till dark when they are all abed and douse every opening. It doesn't take much more than a drop each to do them in. If the nest is well soaked it will take out any stragglers. A can of WD-40 is way cheaper than specific wasp/hornet sprays and easier to aim.

[Breaddrink]

Yeah totaly...Couple of pairs of gloves and a few layers of clothing and my arm should be fairly bulletproof enough to use the cans at such close range.

I had the sprayers in mind from the remote aspect of not needing any part of myself out of the window :D

I'll give it a go. The service wanted 100 dollars for it and they don't remove the nests either.
Just seems too much for what it is. It's not like theres a dozen hornets nests in the attic or anything.

Rob.

[Danford C Jennings]

Rob,

FWIW, what you describe is a hornet's nest, more than likely whiteface hornets...Yellow jackets build their nests in a half-sphere with the cell openings exposed...

Problem with the aerosol spray is the stream is pretty concentrated, the good news is that it can spray upto around 20 feet. The way Dad and I would get rid of the hornets would be to smoke 'em out by building a "fire" under the nest with lots of green twigs and green leaves in the early morning when there was no wind...That would still be my approach, a basket ball sized hornet's nest would take an awfull lot of aerosol (long time) to get saturated; the spray foams up so it takes awhile to soak in. Stirring up a hornet's nest is not for the faint of heart....

Dano