At War With the Wasp’s
August 25th, 2008 by Annette Pedersen
I discovered a wasp nest in my yard yesterday. As usual, it comes as a shock when you come across and disturb a wasp nest. There were wasps’ flying everywhere, and me running into the house in record speed. The nest that I discovered is actually underground. I have battled many wasp nest’s in my day, but this is my first underground nest. I pondered how to begin my “total annihilation” of this species from my yard. My first attempt was not well thought out. I decided to soak a towel, and lay it over the wasp area. I then decided that I could drown the wasps, by turning on the hose over the towel, and soak the area. What I didn’t count on was the number of wasps which were out of the nest at the time. Within minutes, I had about 20 wasps in my area, trying to get into their blocked nest. Time for a new plan. I went and got some nest foam which I have used with great success in the past. The problem for me is I don’t know if I will be able to access the entrance for the wasps. I have tried to make my yard easy to maintain. No grass at all in the backyard, and most of my gardens are covered in rock with plants interspersed throughout. Under my rocks, I have placed a landscaping cloth. My plan was to wait until either dusk or dawn, and pull on the landscape cloth, to expose the nest, and then hopefully see an entrance hole, and blast it with foam. I attempted this procedure both last night and this morning, but as soon as I touched the cloth, the wasps came out. I thought they were supposed to be dormant in the dark. Perhaps it is because they are experiencing flood damage, that they have stayed awake all night. My next attempt will be fire. I have also burned many nests in the past also with great success. I am hopeful that I can just burn right through my landscaping cloth. I will have to test this first however. I don’t want my whole back yard to go up in flames. If all else fails, there is a frost in our near future. I can always wait for Mother Nature to take care of the problem for me.
Tags: cloth, dormant, fire, foam, frost, landscaping, nest, wasp
