I don't think the givenan explanation of how dish soap works (it doesn't have to be Dawn) is exactly correct. The soap is a surfactant, meaning it reduces the surface tension of water. This allows the water in the mixture to easily enter their breathing holes, effectively drowning them. Essentially the wasps are being asphyxiated.
I think you’re right. In searching for the mode of action, in preparation of the video, I found all sorts of explanations all loosely based on functions that lead to asphyxiation. You’re explanation, however, makes the most sense.
I have to agree with you about asphyxiation. I have used Dawn/Warm Water (5% solution) for years on wasp nests. I mix it in a cup and douse the nest. They fall dead instantaneously. I put the Dawn in last and mix it to reduce bubbles. The warm water makes the soap dissolve faster.
I love watching your videos. My family Head a business . My sister had a business exterminating company. My brother-in-law went out one night he had a call from a dentist that day about bees . He knew where the nest was he spray chemical up in there. He’s The next day the dentist office called him from payphone told him the office was full of Bees. I told him I thought he was smarter than that
This is the perfect comment! My coworkers told me I was dancing out in the field after my last, most recent yellow jacket attack. I have named it the "socks full of hornets" dance because apparently that day, my socks were the most favorable piece of clothing for these tiny hellhounds to latch onto.
It's an annual crusade here in 30040. The dish soap works great. I use some old window screen to cover the nest entrance and weigh down the screen edges with garden soil. I mix a generous amount of dish soap in a bucket, pour it thru the screen and into the nest. Repeat nightly for a few days.
in my woods, I stepped right ON a nest, must have crushed part of it, normally they swarm around below the knees, this time they swarmed me, chased me down the road for a mile. One sting is annoying, but 30 is dangerous. Swollen arms and hands, way past annoying. Just a reminder to pay attention when walking through wooded areas. There will be one small hole and a few wasps coming and going. Also; Tyler is not allergic and can get away with short sleeves.... when going after a nest, cover all areas with thick clothes, they can sting through pants and gloves,
I haven't ever had to deal with a *ground* yellow jacket nest,but have had to deal with lots of nests on my house and garage. One nest was somewhere behind a gutter. I bought some Sevin powder from a pest control company,and applied that to the nest,using a long snow rake pole with plastic tubing taped to the pole. Dipped the business end of the tubing in the Sevin,and attached my end of the tubing to a dollar store baster bulb,which allowed me to puff the powder into the spot on the gutter where they were coming and going from a safe distance. Took a few days,but all activity stopped eventually. The beauty of products such as Sevin is that they track the poison into the nest,which kills all of them eventually. It should work well on ground nests as well.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels bad about killing the yellow jackets. But they engaged in war. They swarmed me on my front porch a month ago, stinging me 8-10 times that lead to cellulitis (a secondary infection). I just found their nest in my pumpkin patch. Toxic chemicals are not an option. Thank you!
Was able to use my pump sprayer filled with the stuff (dawn, water and vinegar) from a distance and spray a nest that was on my roof inside the attic air vent. I remained on the ground and shot it way up so it came down like rain on the vent and they started coming out like crazy, falling dead in less than twenty seconds. Went up on the roof afterward to remove the nest with the end of a coat hanger, and wow it was the size of a baseball and full of larvae gross! Great video! Thanks for posting.
I was stung 5 times this summer clearing my back yard. I am a bit hasitant to go there now. I am gonna try the soapy water thing as soon as I get some time.Thanks.
Very nice, I am currently at war with a yellow jacket hive & this might come in handy. I especially like that you were curious enough to know why that works & share what you found. Tyvm.
You were lucky. I once stepped in a ground nest in the woods while getting firewood. They quietly climbed up between my boots and pants legs then started stinging at the top of the boots. Pain city.
@@dianamcanally5515 Crawled up your boots..Damit! I figured that Yellowjackets would just swarm and sting. I ended up purchasing a Try-vex PPE bee-wasp nest removal suit off of Amazon for like $50.00. I went to exterminate them, but the whole in the ground is small and hard to see in the middle of the night. I’m going to use gasoline.
I used boiling water in large spaghetti pans with heavy dish soap it took 2 applications and got rid of them. I bought the large bottles from Lowes for this!
I used the soap supplied at those cheap motels! Using the ice bucket and slow water flow washed my hands, dissolving the soap into the bucket! Wasp nest just outside the door! Throwing the whole bucket on the nest, the fel like rocks! Most dead, but the few survivers, were barely able to walk, not fly at all! Easy to step on, and finish them all off! Wasps head to the nest just before dark, or if the temp falls below 65. Keep your bars of soap, from the bathroom! You can’t beat the price, nor effectiveness!
If you want an instant kill that won't harm environmentally add peppermint oil it's expensive but it makes the soap work faster, and it smells good, also good for other insects.
I have them going into a small opening under the eaves under a track of lights that I had installed last year. I wonder if there is any way to get the Dawn dish soap up there? I'm glad you found a way other than using insecticide. I guess that's why they use the powder to get them, like you said it removes the oil.
Hi I'm an exterminator, and I use this method sometimes. It only works in certain situatiuons though. And you don't need to use it straight, you can mix it with water and shake it up so the foam gets in all the corners of the nest. If you don't have a bee suit, doing it at night is possible if you are brave but things can still go wrong. Still, a lot of people get hurt by them every year and I recommend you call a pro.
A quick fyi, I was never allergic to yellow jackets either, until I got stung by one last year. I had been stung many times by them over my life time, so I was puzzled how I became allergic to them. The doctor said, that people can have an allergic reaction at any time to anything. So be careful with these things, 1 sting put me in the ER.
I was just hospitalized w a wasp sting, wheezing, chest pain, vomiting, passing out like coma, falling, concussion: Life threatening. Be careful. Docs said that allergic reactions could happen any time. So scared of them now. EpiPen a must.
@@miming4015 Isn't it scary that a little bug can be so life changing, and not in a good way. I can empathize. One of my favorite things to do was cut grass, and now I don't even want to take a chance.
I poured 1/3 bottle of dish soap down the hole, then waited a while. Later in the day, I poured another third down the hole and then used the water hose to put a bunch of water in it. It is one day later and all I have is a bunch of pissed off yellow jackets. They weren't swarming this way before I started. Also, they appear to be going in and out of the hole normally, as if there is no problem.
Try doing it at night when they all return to the nest. The ones still around were probably out and about when you waged war. Also safer at night because won't get stung by the ones flying around.
I’m going to try putting dawn soap directly into the hose. (I do this to clean the siding etc on my house). Then I would spray directly into the colony. From a very safe distance.
My red wasps are in my attic and I can't get to their nests. So I got a Zep Industrial Water sprayer that holds 60 ounces and shoots 16-18 ft on stream. I add 8 oz of Ajax Super Degreaser in the 90 oz jug ($5) which will make 11 batches of mix. I then add 10 drops of Peppermint Oil ($5) because they hate the smell of peppermint and the area around the house soffit will retain that smell. I then add 1 oz of Home Defense Bug Killer ($8) and will make a whole lot of this mix. When you shoot a wasp, they either drop to the ground if you really got them, or fly off. The soap will act like a binder on their body. They will go groom it off, but then they ingest the Home Defense. They will groom for about half an hour, then the Defense kicks in. They will crawl and roll around for another few hours and die. Either way, they die. I know I have a lot of these red paper wasps in my attic but they have places to access the attic I can't get to. So I just shoot them with this solution. Slowly, there are less and less to take aim and shoot at. They are losing the war. Now my dog and I are much safer and I do what I need to protect my little dog. Maybe this will help others. Add the Home Defense to any DIY mix you add to a water bottle and it will help ensure they don't survive the ordeal. Total cost = $.75 cents per batch.
I put a good amount of Dawn dish soap in a 5 gallon bucket and filled the bucket with boiling water (boiled the water in pots on the stove). Took the bucket out to the hole at night and dumped it in. Next morning, didn't see any yellow jacket activity but there was a piece of honeycomb nest sitting next to the hole. Wonder how exactly that got there, especially considering the hole was still in tact (didn't look like the nest was dug up).
Don’t mess with them during the day. Figure out where they are and attack them AT NIGHT. #1 They _ALL_ come back to the nest before dark. So you will get all of them. #2 They don’t or can’t fly at night so you are safer.
I killed two wasps nests with a weed sprayer container filled with concentrated dawn soapy water. They die immediately. I waited until nighttime when all wasps were back home in the nest. I sprayed the nest and as the wasps came out they died immediately and fell to the ground. Easy peasy.
Dawn is best, it has the most surfactant and it makes more suds. He actually should have poured a bucket of super sudsy dish soap and water. The suds are what sticks to the. And suffocates them.
Brake cleaner is INSTANT and actually CHEAPER than wasp spray for "emergency" situations. But I just used my Milwaukee portable shop vac running with the hose at the entrance to clear them out during the day. It worked.
Very good question. I killed some areas by putting down cardboard or paper and a very good layer of mulch. Other areas I will try and kill using a tarp and leaving that for a few weeks. I may try some selective applications of herbicide as well, but that will be location dependent. Any other ideas?
How would you tackle this? I know I have ground hornets because they keep flying out from underneath one of my decorative bushes. I can't see the hole. Should I just get on winter gear and a helmet and go in at night? Lol I've got my Dawn dish soap ready, but need to figure out a solution for finding where to pour it
The reason they are called janitors of the forest is because, being meat eaters, they clean down to skeletons small dead animals. Vultures clean the large animals, but the yellow jackets are there too. I actually have a funny story about a yellow jacket. We were outside on the porch eating breakfast, when the yellow jackets arrived. There only a few, and I did something my dad taught me. You put a little sacrificial meat on the edge of your plate for them.They won’t sting you, you’re away from their nest. One bee decided to go after a piece of ham about the size of a nickel. He wrapped himself around it, and tried to take off, but it was too heavy. He was like a helicopter with too heavy a load. He buzzed like crazy getting a few mm off my plate, then would fall back down. He moved it off the edge of my then fell down to the floor wrapped around the piece of ham. He ended up on his back when he hit floor. He got up, looked at the piece of ham, cut it into two pieces, flew off with one piece, then came back for the second. I can remember my dad saying about a time when he was eating outside. “ The yellow jackets were so bad they would ride my fork up to my mouth and I had to blow them off before I could eat” I think that was when he was a forest Ranger back in the 30s. Peter
actually a powder insecticide sprinkled in the entrance will do the trick... they carry it in and game over. A very efective alternative is to make a bait with Fipronil and cat food--- cannot remember the specific type but it needs to be premium cat food in a tin. The proportion is about 0.3 ml (40% Fipronil) in 250 grams. The benefit of this approach is that it attracts and kills them over a fairly wide area. For those who object to the contamination, they carry it in the nest so the tiny amount is buried with the corpses. Moreover you only need a few grams of the bait to eliminate them over an acre or so-- keep the rest in the freezer until next year. Remember that yellow jackets forage for protein ending in early August when they change up to foraging sweet. DO NOT put Fipronil in any sweet bait or you will kill bees wholesale.... very, very bad. Note that proportion was 3/10 of a millilitre-- use a small syringe
Is "Dawn Dish Soap" a Regular Dish Washing Liquid Soap, or is it a Super Concentrated Dish Wash Soap. It is not available here in the UK, for cleaning dishes.
I got stung in the beard and on my arms when I opened a gate that had been left all summer. I sprayed a heavy mix of dawn and water at the gate and moments later they were all dead.
I’m in the uk an when it’s nice warm day I’ve seen them settle on my wooden fence think they take it back to build there nests . There clever but I luv bees . There good hate wasps
Another environmentally friendly way. Watch as the sun sets and when the wasps have returned to the nest in the ground and there are no more flying around into the ground, then VERY CAREFULLY pour 2-two quart pots of boiling hot water down the hole and then quickly plug it up with a rag you have standing by. YOU MUST FEEL SAFE CARRYING AND WORKING WITH VERY HOT WATER. IF YOU DON`T FEEL SAFE, DO NOT TRY THIS APPROACH.
What the hell from the getgo all you had to do is wait till nightfall when their all in the ground. The one time I exterminated a nest was very easy. Just pour gasoline down the hole and safely light it. Poof worked perfectly with VERY little environmental damage. Another way I've never tried is to pour a cup of diatomaceous earth down the hole. Probably would take at least a few days to work but it should work.
Someone please tell me i'm not crazy. Ants have been bad this year. Also tpday i got stung by 12 yellow jackets mowing the lawn with headphones in and today was terrible.
ONE stung you?!? Lucky! My husband accidentally came across a nest clearing our yard. He immediately ran full sprint for over 10 minutes before he could TRY to come inside. Stripping his clothes as he ran. He got 53 stings! And the pheromone they mark you with to target you, was so strong that they kept attack his clothes in the yard hours later in the pouring rain and came back to his clothes the NEXT day. It was insane. I now have a bee suit for yard clearing 😐 and my land survey crew got into ANOTHER NEST! 😵💫😣 so I gotta deal with that one using my handy dandy suit. I'm fucking terrified I can't lie lol I hope to God this suit works
The best way to kill yellow-jackets is the age-old Southern way. Locate the nest, and clear a direct view of the hole during the day. One swipe with a rake or similar tool, and run away. Come back later and repeat as necessary. AFTER FULL DARK, return to the nest with a small container with 4-8 oz of gasoline. Use a light just before you reach the nest: Illuminate the nest opening.and pour the gasoline into the hole, turn OFF the light, leave quickly. The gas fumes will kill all adults, pupae, larvae, and eggs. DO NOT ignite the gasoline. Next morning, the entire nest will be killed. No, the gasoline will NOT poison the earth , the water table, you, your spouse and sweet kids, or even your unpleasant neighbor. It will simply kill the yellow-jackets and then completely evaporate. This method is 100% successful if performed correctly. The gasoline must be poured into the hole. The soap method uses too much liquid and the pour takes too long! Give this method a try, it works!
The bug spray would have worked too if you had done it at night. Your biggest mistake was trying to kill them during the day. Always go after wasps at night.
I tried that once on my porch outside the window. All it did was make them white hot angry and bash into the window to try to get me. That was with wasp spray.
You ALWAYS go after the nest after dark. The nasty little blighters will all be inside. Use wasp spray on the opening and watch for any other openings. Paper nests will rarely have a second opening. Darkness is key!
Be careful even at night. I came back at night to do in a yellowjacket nest I had seen during the day, and when I looked at the hole from about 3 feet away I could make out one yellowjacket at the entrance looking out, and it instantly flew straight at me and stung me. So be careful even at night. It was as if they had a guard posted. One year we had what seemed like millions of yellowjackets, probably dozens of nests. In the afternoon when the sun was at the right angle I could go out and see them coming and going from their nests. I mixed up some boric acid powder in tuna (about a level tablespoon in a can of tuna mixed in well). They cleaned out a can of tuna in about 4 hours, swarming like something from a horror movie. That did not seem to kill them that year, but, we have had very few yellowjackets since when my neighbors have many. I don't know if that is because of the boric acid or not, but it is easy and inexpensive to try if you have a massive yellowjacket infestation. (Just don't put the cans of tuna near where you will be outside.)
I usually use 4-5 ounces of dawn in a 5-gallon bucket of water and it typically kills any nest I’ve come across. I also use HOT water, as that kills them as well.
Yes .I did the exactly thing 5oz of dawn, a gallon of boiling water AND I added a cup of bleach...IT WORKS IT WORKS....kills the entire nest within minutes ..DO IT AT NIGHT!!
My favorite for several years is "Simple Green" spray cleaner. I keep a spray bottle of it handy all season to knock down the "starter nests" as they are found early in Spring, spray any strays on windows or doors, and wipe out larger colonies as found. It knocks the wasps out of the air before they can even begin to attack. I have bad reactions to the stings so it means a lot to knock them out fast.
Makes sense that it would work since it is a solvent and would break down the waxing layer of the insect just like soap. I use it for cleaning and will keep that in mind if I need to spray them.
I was dog sitting for a neighbor and was swarmed by wasp, resulting in over 100 stings on my head, chest & arms in less than 30 seconds. I live rural on a mountain, so I knew I was in trouble. I yelled at the dog to get in the house, & he hauled butt so fast he didn't get a single sting. I passed out twice before being able to low crawl to my house 200 meters up an embankment. I called 9-11, lost the connection, and took 3 benadryl, but my heart was pounding so fast I knew if I couldn't slow it down, I was going to die before the ambulance got here. I prayed to God to save me, and for some reason I remembered the New Years party for family & friends was at my house. I was not an alcohol drinker, but something told me that it could slow my heart down enough. I crawled to my pantry, slammed about 3 shots of vodka, and crawled out to my front deck. I put myself in the recovery position & elevated my legs. I passed out again and was revived by paramedics. I was hospitalized, had my head shaved so they could remove the dozens of stingers from my scalp. Now, I am deathly allergic & carry an epinephrine injector constantly. I also SWEAR by Dawn dish detergent to eliminate hives! Be proactive, be safe, & get rid of these hives before you, family, or friends get put into a life or death situation simply because they took a step that angered wasps. I don't recommend alcohol to anyone, but the E.R. doctor said the Benedryl & Vodka probably saved my life due to how long it took for the ambulance to get to me. Edit: they were bees at my neighbors, I have a crazy amount of wasps of different kinds on my property, so they are always what I refer anything stinging to.
Wow 😮 I’m glad you’re ok! What a story 😥 and big hugs to you for thinking of the fur baby ❤. Those things are the devil!! They keep popping up! Seeing those pest control people come in their flip flops to just put dust in there and leave for $180 when I just need to gain some courage and timing and do my homework. I’m hoping to get there soon before this nest gets any bigger.
@@JoJo-y9s3z Thankyou! It was a horrific experience, but it did help me remember I am a fighter! That pup KNEW we were in trouble. I always tell folks that if their pets could talk, they would say I talk WAY too much! I do that so they know my tones & inflection as to whats going on. I tell my story so people can take steps to reduce the chance of a swarm attack. I cannot imagine a child, elderly person or animal having to deal with the attack I had! Thankyou again for your kind words & reading my story!🙂👍Edit: I have recently learned that silica spray makes them unable to fly & if you take a jar with a third of it filled with gasoline and carefully put the jar over a nest it kills the nest very quickly. I haven't tried it yet, but its worth researching!
@synthesaurus Actually, they were honey bees that were very upset because a bear knocked over my neighbors huge hive that they never took the honey out of. I've been researching weird looking wasps I now have on my property! Great catch!👍
I'm used to taking out yellow jacket nests where hoses aren't an option so we just mix a cup or two of dish detergent (any kind works but Dawn has the fewest additives) into a 5 gallon bucket of water and pour it into the hole. Always be careful to watch for secondary holes as you do it. Hives often have more than one opening.
@@TylerLloyd I made it easier with flame in a torch and cardboard, I just covered the hole with cardboard and burnt all my garbage and plastics I did it during the day, but I thought at night might be better. I thought Diesel might be a good solution
From a NZ sheep farmer many years ago -- return to the nest at night when they are all at home, pour half a cup of diesel fuel with a small amount of petrol as a thinner into the nest opening, plug it with a ball of clay and walk away. No need for fire. The fumes will kill them all. Fire it if you wish, but it's not necessary!
Great video. I improvised a bit. Layered up the clothing, grabbed my tennis racket and the hose. Indeed they led me to the ground nest. Tonight it's bath time for these little buggers. Thanks!!
@@lizzieorwig64it won't harm them I spray roses in the morning with a dawn solution to help mildew black spot and remove the 7 insecticide its only a problem if you spray it in full sun or add salt or oil to the solution
That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to get up early Saturday morning like at 4:00am. I’ve got a heavy duty Carhartt jacket, fleece lined work pants, gloves, a full face stocking cap with a scarf. Dawn dishwashing liquid, and Raid. I’m not taking any chances.
@@StainlessTIG2 You can just wait until it is dark in the evening. 10 or 11 o'clock. But, sure, they will be even less active at 4 am. I normally use about 1/2 cup of gasoline down the hole. I do it around 10 or 11 at night. They are always gone the next day. Don't light the gasoline, the fumes are what kills them. I may try the soap the next time to see how it works. I've heard to pour hot, soapy water down the hole too. I know gasoline works great though.
I have probably taken care of more than 100 nests of yellow jackets (in Sweden). I use several different strategies - sometimes combined depending on the context. One of these strategies involved dish-water detergent and a water hose and this is for either ground wasps or wasps in birds' houses and similar contexts. First - as said in this video - early in the morning (preferably on a chilly day if you can chose) and then just pour 10-20 ml of any dish water detergent (I never bothered about the brand - it always worked) and then just flood the nest with water and stay away for 3-4 days - usually all wasps are then gone - a few may still be around but has never been a problem. If it is a birds' house I usually open it - give it a week to be sure - get the nest out on the ground and just walk over it (boots!) and leave for one more day. I never noticed any leftover life in such rests. For ground wasps - I have also sometimes combined with the use of one of these battery driven "badminton-like" rackets (tie it to a long string or lace so that you can pull it away from the hole - after you have 20 wasps on it the electric charge won't work because of the short circuit - shake of the wasps and stomp on them - then repeat until most wasps are gone - can be done in a safe way even daytime). On a few such occasions where a water hose was not an option I instead arranged with a fire in the hole after most active wasps had been killed. Other methods I use involve the use of a vacuum cleaner with different variations depending on contexts, time of the year and so on. For small wasp nests with a few individuals in them one can use any hair spray or whatever and spray into the hole - it probably doesn't kill the wasps but they don't like it and move to some other place. The downside of this is that you may have a few irritated wasps flying around for up to 10 days afterwards but they don't seem to like hair sprays so it works (discovery more than 50 years ago when I used my mother's whatever it was - not exactly insecticide but enough unpleasant chemistry* to do the job). Wasp nests under roofs and smaller than a fist can often be knocked down physically and just stomped on (best early mornings when it is chilly...). Only got lightly stung on two occasions when I took care of wasp nests (and badly stung on a couple of other occasions but those times I was not aware of their presence until they got me). * Retired now but have three different academic degrees in science/technology - one of these in theoretical chemistry... (the wasp chemistry context is perhaps more practical than theoretical...).
I have a nest in my wall (entrance is on the outside of my house)..where my sunroom meets the main house. I wonder if hair spray would work. The humming at night was more loud than a refrigerator.. It was crazy. We killed a bunch (assumed) as its more quiet, although there are some still as I hear papery sounds in the wall. Its hard to spray in the hole as it's where a few things come together (siding, etc).
@@RunninUpThatHillh I have them at the corner soffit on my house. How do we get it into the nest? I don't want to rip out part of my roof and I am a single senior lady
@@RunninUpThatHillh Call a professional exterminator. Wasps can eat through drywall and end up inside your home. This happened to my home years ago. Very nasty if they get through the drywall.
Thank you for showing the failures as well as the successes. To me, that is more important as to the validity. We all go through our trials, and it's the failures that I learn from the most. That being said: Warnings to everyone... Yellow jackets can be extremely aggressive. I occasionally get them in my front yard. It doesn't take much to get the nest swarming... simply walking over or near the hole can agitate them to attack mode. For dogs and children's sake, I take them out if they're in the front yard. To someone that is allergic, this could be deadly. I can attest to the soap part. My method is to first locate the hole. Don't approach a yellow jacket's nest until at LEAST 1 hour after they're disturbed. Yellow jackets won't swarm on sight from my experiences, it's more vibration that gets their attention. So walk softly. Look during the day, and look to see where they land. I then mark where the hole is by putting something bright and light colored indicating EXACTLY where the hole is. At around 11:00, I go and fill a 5 gallon bucket with water. I then pour 1/4th a bottle of whatever dish soap I have into the water and stir softly (I try not to create bubbles as much as I can). I walk out there with a flashlight, and gingerly approach the nest. I then pour the whole 5 gallons into that little quarter sized hole. I quickly turn over the bucket, put it on top of the hole, and place a rock on top of the bucket to push it down. That's it. The next day, I lift the bucket to see the results. People would be amazed at what comes out of a hole about the size of a quarter.
I have heard of this technique for removing aggressive beehives. Came here to make sure it works on Yellowjackets before attempting. Can confirm their stings are unpleasant 😅
agreed dish soap works. what i used was the initial hit with soap and water from a long PVC pipe. you can use a hose. Later in the evening I filled a 4 gallon jug for a water cooler with a water/soap mixture and flipped it up over the exit hole. Sometimes nests have 2 and also the queen can be protected because the design of the nests even when you flood the opening, the hive makes a air pocket. The water jug serves a second use as the few survivors try to leave and exit and fly up and into the jug repeatedly.
A good Yellow Jacket trap with Dawn Dish soap - small bucket, Regular MTN Dew, with some dawn dish soap. Works better than store bought traps, just make sure to use regular MTN Dew. They are very attracted to it.
Very good brief video, with surprisingly accurate/helpful info... also rather entertaining, I thought the spraying part was hilarious, I was NOT expecting to laugh as much as I did :) Anyway, after watching, I was armed with all I needed... I successfully removed a wasp nest. Thanks :)
When I was 2 years old I stepped on a in the ground wasp nest. I don’t remember how many times I was bit. But it hurts. I’m 60 now and can still remember it. My house now is being overrun by them recently. I’m thankful for your video.
Good video. I've used dish soap for years. Typically I'll put a cup of soap in a large bucket, and add 3 gallons of water. Wait till dark and pour into nest entry. Sometime I add soap after initial application and use a hose to force the soapy water into the nest chambers. Never had an instance where it hasn't worked.
In my teens I worked as a house painter in Texas. Whenever we came across a Yellow Jacket nest on a house we would tie a wad of newspaper to the end of a pole, light it on fire, and use it to burn the nest. This method was quick, efficient, and 100 percent effective. There were never any survivors and it was over in seconds.
That’s helpful - I’ll try the dish soap if there is a next time. I couldn’t help giggling at the evasive maneuvers when you were spraying them from a distance. We had a big colony in our little orchard and just did a can of yellow jacket killer directly into the opening and then ran like hell. It worked, though. Many years ago when there was a nest in the yard, we poured in a little gasoline at night and then threw lit matches at it until it went up in a fireball. Stupid, I know, but wildly entertaining.
I came across a yellow jacket nest on my most recent lawn mowing. The nest is a part of the yard that gets mowed, so I want to get rid of them, but without killing the grass in the area. How does the Dawn soap affect the fertility of the ground? I could live with a dead spot for a year, but I don't want a permanent spot.
I've seen some professionals use a soap hookup with a pressure washer, and you can absolutely decimate wasps with it. Especially nests up high, or with big swarms. I even use this trick on a smaller scale in the garden with aphids and gnats.
There was a large nest in the ground in my backyard. I put on my beesuit and studied the spot and noticed that there were two entrances. So I took a couple of large branches and jammed them into the entrances as deeply as I could. I wondered if they'd dig their way back out but the yellow jackets never reappeared.
@@TylerLloyd I built my first top bar hives in 2009 and then added langstroths a few years ago. Even if I didn't have bees, my suit has come in handy more than once when dealing with wasp nests.
I did something similar with a nest in a rotten tree that had several entrances. Took a big commercial roll of plastic wrap and wrapped the tree a dozen times one cool summer evening. Several months later we cut down the tree and it was nearly hollow and full of dead yellow jackets
Keep your face far away from the hole when you do. Also hope theres no swamp gas nearby. Or farting cows. And doesnt work if you're in a dry area because you'll burn the forest down. Or just use dish soap
Dish soap is amazing for many pests. We had an Aphid infestation that was greatly mitigated with a spray of dish soap water - Now the Ladybugs are doing the rest :)
It is! The one thing I will caution is that the soap does not discriminate and will kill any insect, the good and bad. So like you said, use when they’re out of control and then allow nature to keep them in balance.
My comment disappeared, but I use 5 gal water with 1/2 cup Dawn and a heathy dash of Carpenter Ant and Termite Killer which contaiins permethrin which is pretty safe for Humans . Mix with hose spray to make foamy , pour on hole at nightt. I use a stake which points right to the hole.
What were you thinking????. Nobody in their right mind would do that during daylight hours. You wait until they're all in the nest for the night then you put your stuff in and you close the nest opening so they can't get out
When I tried the vinegar and they swarmed, I nearly ran to the other end of my property 😆. But I’m ready for the next time they nest where I don’t want them.
I have killed off 4-5 of these nests in my yard in the past few years. The method I use is boiling water - boil water in an electric kettle, then at night (9pm or so), pour the entire kettle down the entrance of the nest. This has been super effective in my experience, and it's environmentally safe. Sometimes I have had to return the following night and do it again. Doing it at night ensures that most of the yellow jackets will be in the nest. Good luck!
@@debragraff4649 have you tried dish soap yet? Others mix it with water and then pour, but I liked my squirt and then hose method. Just have to be able to reach the nest with a hose.
@@debragraff4649 What happened? How much water did you use? On the last nest I had to do it three (!) nights in a row before they were all gone - perhaps I did not use enough water the first 2 times.
Hope this helps (posting in several vids because you all have been helpful to me) - I wanted a non toxic (as possible) solution to wasps/ yellow jackets. My children have been stung terribly by these things, so it was my turn to deal with it. I found their location through keen observation - just watching insects come and go and found a large concentration of them going into the ground, which was home for them. I was inclined to use gas, but then learned 1litre is enough to poison 1Million litres of ground water. No bueno. So I used regular tap water and four kinds of soaps: dish, a liberal sprinkling of "Comet", 3 dishwashing machine dissolvable pouches and 2 scoops of borax/soap flakes. Suffice to say there was enough bubbles for Africa. I carried a very large bucket of water (half a metal full size trash can worth) to the location, far away from my home. It was heavy going as I am fat. Tip: use a stout stick to help with the digging in of the handle by carrying the stick under the handle. I went at 9pm on late summer night. It was dark out. Using my head flashlight, I located the hole. There were dozens of them still buzzing around the hole. I was dead afraid having been stung by these before. I decided to forgo the funnel, steel wool as some advised. The hole was just far too big. I poured the water and the foam overwhelmed them. I poured about half quickly, then calmed down and poured till it soaked into the hole. Observed for a second, then got chicken and poured more in spurts, until it was all gone. I was shocked at the size of the things guarding the entrance at night. These were easily half as long as my tip of thumb to thumb joint. Not as thick obviously, but seriously large. Yellow jackets on kind of steroids. I saw them all on the surface completely motionless (I read the soap dissolves their wax, filling their spiracles, which drowns them instantly). After all was poured, I waited ten seconds at the hole and saw nothing come out. I was still scared in case there may be workers still coming back to the nest. I got out of there and will go look at it tomorrow/next day and report back if there is interest.
@@TylerLloyd my pleasure. The next morning I found activity at the wasp net entrance, though the big boys were dead, and severely diminished in terms of numbers. Not good enough. Last night I went with an acquaintance, and we poured double the amount of the soapy (hot) water concoction in at night time. There were no guards on duty. I poured my large container in slowly, and then he did his. We found several stragglers possibly coming from a second entrance close to the original gaping nest hole and doused those. The soap kills quicker than wasp spray poison I have found - back to back tests within 12hrs of each other. This morning I went to check twice. Before 7am and now at 1030am with sun. There were about 5 wasps in total buzzing around, I sprayed poison onto them and onto the nest entrance quite thickly. Otherwise, quiet and dead still after observing ten minutes. I might go again tonight to just rid the nest of any other wasps near the entrance. Feels way less stressful with about 99% of them eradicated. I am a believe in this method. Less environmentally negative than other methods. With limited water supply (no hose), it requires a few dosings. No big deal. And highly effective.
@@TylerLloyd once again, my pleasure. Great news is that I visited the nest site 4x today throughout the day. The nest is dead. No flying wasps, although there are a load of them dead in the entrances. Safety along the route, resumes. Thanks for the tips, advice, experiences all. Cheers Tyler
