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Heavy heavy lawn thread 2019


Damage In Tolland
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12 hours ago, S&P said:

Thanks they are what they are, we have problems with people who don’t control easy food sources for them here which attract them to Populated neighborhoods.So no surprise it’s mostly the people that suck

When we put our mulch beds down we noticed a fox digging around the soft ground. It looked smaller so we thought female, then saw a larger male hunting the tree line. It's possible neighbors landscaping (lots of earth moving equipment) disturbed a den, because we had never seen them before. It appeared to be a sandy morph though, not a traditional red color. Our neighbors are claiming they have seen a coyote (which wouldn't really be surprising in Portland) but I'm not so sure they just didn't catch a glimpse of an off color fox.

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I have some liquid permethrin, but I've read that will take a couple of minutes to kill them...sounds like a recipe for getting stung while waiting for them to die. My sister is allergic to yellowjacket stings, but I've never been stung. I'm not too excited to jump in there.

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7 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I have some liquid permethrin, but I've read that will take a couple of minutes to kill them...sounds like a recipe for getting stung while waiting for them to die. My sister is allergic to yellowjacket stings, but I've never been stung. I'm not too excited to jump in there.

I've used Drione for years, an exterminator told me about it, you use a duster to apply it.  Its worked great for me on the bastards, they carry the dust on themselves deep into the nest.

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8 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I have some liquid permethrin, but I've read that will take a couple of minutes to kill them...sounds like a recipe for getting stung while waiting for them to die. My sister is allergic to yellowjacket stings, but I've never been stung. I'm not too excited to jump in there.

Man up and go Rambo on them.  Nothing worse then cutting the lawn and disturbing one of their nests.  I was easily stung a half dozen times before I realized what I had done.

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8 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I have some liquid permethrin, but I've read that will take a couple of minutes to kill them...sounds like a recipe for getting stung while waiting for them to die. My sister is allergic to yellowjacket stings, but I've never been stung. I'm not too excited to jump in there.

Wait for the next sub-60 morning and get them at first light.  I'd use one of those long-distance wasp killer sprays, from 4-5 feet away.  If none come out in response, plop a rock on the hole big enough to block it, so the chemical is trapped with the insects.  The year that paper wasps colonized the rock wall along our driveway (3 stings for me and 5 for my wife), I picked a 50° morning to flip the rock under which they'd nested, and got plenty of juice on them before any became airborne - and none made it more than 2 feet from the nest.
My dad used to do the gasoline method at our grandparents' summer place with it's 3/4-acre lawn that averaged 2-3 nests per mowing.  He'd go out in late evening, dump the half cup and light it.  On one particularly large nest (judged by swarm size when disturbed, there was a washtub-size hole in the ground the next morning.

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5 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Wait for the next sub-60 morning and get them at first light.  I'd use one of those long-distance wasp killer sprays, from 4-5 feet away.  If none come out in response, plop a rock on the hole big enough to block it, so the chemical is trapped with the insects.  The year that paper wasps colonized the rock wall along our driveway (3 stings for me and 5 for my wife), I picked a 50° morning to flip the rock under which they'd nested, and got plenty of juice on them before any became airborne - and none made it more than 2 feet from the nest.
My dad used to do the gasoline method at our grandparents' summer place with it's 3/4-acre lawn that averaged 2-3 nests per mowing.  He'd go out in late evening, dump the half cup and light it.  On one particularly large nest (judged by swarm size when disturbed, there was a washtub-size hole in the ground the next morning.

When I lived on the farm I torched one and then dug out the mammoth 4 foot by 3 foot nest. Insane

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3 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I know that wasn’t there when I planted the tree a month or two ago. How quickly can they reach those mammoth sizes?

I would guess you've probably discovered it in the middle of the growth of the nest. End of summer numbers would be in the thousands of individuals. 

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29 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I know that wasn’t there when I planted the tree a month or two ago. How quickly can they reach those mammoth sizes?

Probably by a factor of about 10 every 3 weeks or so.  In 2-3 months a solo queen can bring the nest to a thousand or more.
 

When I lived on the farm I torched one and then dug out the mammoth 4 foot by 3 foot nest. Insane

What a giant!  Fortunately, in the instance noted above, there was no dig needed, only fill as the burnout was total.

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6 hours ago, dendrite said:

I know that wasn’t there when I planted the tree a month or two ago. How quickly can they reach those mammoth sizes?

Quickly. A month of growth for a nest could easily be hundreds of YJs or more. You could also pay someone to take care of it. My daughter stepped on a sprinkler box cover and got chased by a swarm last year. I couldn’t get near the thing without them coming out. I hired someone. He wasn’t messing around when he came out.

122A547C-305B-4D09-AA33-53E53DD6FB8F.jpeg

What he pulled out filled the entire valve box. Probably the size of two footballs. He said we caught it early, maybe two weeks old. 

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On 7/29/2019 at 7:08 AM, moneypitmike said:

Wow.  I would tend to be with the over-watered crowd.  These don't need to be watered daily--perhaps every 2-3 days after transplant.

However, the fact that this all happened in 3 days sounds like something more dire.  Like you spilled some  Round up on it.  :)

I’ve had situations like this. The leaves are still on the shrub but essentially detached/dead. The plant has focused downward after transplant and abandoned those leaves. A good rain comes along and knocks them all off at once. 

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9 hours ago, dendrite said:

Thanks for the advice all. Wish we could get some 40s in here...looks like torch mins  for a few days. 

I had never heard of Drione so I went to their FAQ page. It will kill bees and hornet's but not yellow jackets and its harmful to birds.

Q
Does Drione Dust kill yellow jackets?
A

Drione Dust does not treat foryellow jackets.  As 

an alternative use Tempo 1% dust

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13 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

I had never heard of Drione so I went to their FAQ page. It will kill bees and hornet's but not yellow jackets and its harmful to birds.

Q
Does Drione Dust kill yellow jackets?
A

Drione Dust does not treat foryellow jackets.  As 

an alternative use Tempo 1% dust

That's why I asked about permethrin. I have the powder and liquid on hand here as I use it on my chickens to treat for mites. I know it's deadly for bees and other insects too so I try to be careful where I put it. If I'm not directly treating a bird's vent, I put it in their dustbathing bins.

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/homeowners/040925.html

Quote

Yellowjackets can be controlled with wasp and hornet sprays containing mint oil, permethrin, tetramethrin, or tralomethrin. Be sure to read and follow all label directions. Underground nests can be controlled with permethrin. Immediately after application shovel some soil down the hole and then run fast, run far.

 

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10 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

I had never heard of Drione so I went to their FAQ page. It will kill bees and hornet's but not yellow jackets and its harmful to birds.

Q
Does Drione Dust kill yellow jackets?
A

Drione Dust does not treat foryellow jackets.  As 

an alternative use Tempo 1% dust

That's crazy.  I must have weak yellow jackets or some other type of aggressive bee.  The next time I need it I'll post a pic of the dead bee and maybe someone can identify what kind it is.  My brother just borrowed it last week for a nest in his basketball hoop.

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I finally got around to power washing my house after a couple years of grime and green stuff had built up on the north side (last summer's dews were chiefly responsible). On the positive side, the house is gleaming like new. On the negative side, I set my ladder down on a yellow jacket nest and now have a lovely complement of angry welts on my calf. 

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