Wasp nest - unwelcome visitors!

[Wayfarer1008]

What I have done is simply taken hose with a high pressure nozzle and spray it down the length of the boom under the cover for a couple of hours. this may dislodge the nest and chase the bees away. If they are inside the boom you are going to have to come up with a spray to kill them

[Comix Bay]

Originally Posted by Bruce K

Yellow Jackets!!! Stir fried with a bit of chili and ginger, YUM!!!!!!!!!!

Or dipped in a chocolate fondue!!

[oleman]

Our shipmates have provided solutions for eradication of the insects but you don't have to nuke every thing you don't like in your environment. If the insects have no source of food they will move to a new location.
Take the vessel to sea a few weeks and they will have no food source except each other unless you provide the food. I never found any flying insects on a vessel that is at sea for months at a time.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by oleman

Our shipmates have provided solutions for eradication of the insects but you don't have to nuke every thing you don't like in your environment. If the insects have no source of food they will move to a new location.
Take the vessel to sea a few weeks and they will have no food source except each other unless you provide the food. I never found any flying insects on a vessel that is at sea for months at a time.

Care to explain how he is going to actually SAIL out at sea if he can't get his mainsail cover off without getting stung?!?


Logistics 101...

[Cadence]

Have an epi pen handy incase you are allergic.

[bletso]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

If it's just a small nest no bigger than a tennis ball, expose it and hose it off into the water. I wouldnt spray chemicals on your sail.

I tried that as a kid and the buggers followed the stream of water to me and bam. They didn't miss!

[Wayfarer1008]

As I said on another thread you may just want to go out and invest in aa couple yellow jacket traps. They contain a pheromone that attracts the yellow jackets to instead of the nest trapping them until you dispose of its contents. One the numbers are down in the cool of the night you should be able to get the cover off. from there its a case of raising the sail "From a distance and getting the nest off.

[Mike Banks]

Sure. Wait until nightfall, when all of the wasps are sitting under the nest, then approach the nest and use a sheet of newspaper rolled up and lighted--which you then stick under the nest for a few seconds. Not enough to singe your sails or their covers.

That singes the wings off any guard wasps, and they immediately drop on to the deck. The smoke makes the nest unusable and any survivors abandon it. In the morning, remove the nest.

Failing that, use Baygon surface spray at night instead of the flaming torch. Nothing survives that.

[Beavereater]

Here's two cents from an exterminator. We use insecticidal dust when dealing with Yellow Jackets nesting in a dry cavity. Your case would not be an option because insecticides and marine life don't mix well. There are slower working dusts that won't be harmful to aquatic life. I would look for Cimexa if you can find some, or Diatomaceous earth would work as an alternative these are slow acting desiccants so it will take a few days for the colony to die off after contact with the dust. Soap also works as a desiccant but it may be difficult to deliver to the hive. Getting the dust delivered to the nest should be done at night with something that will help you puff it out in a concentrated cloud. We use rubber bulb dusters, but anything that will allow you to put the dust under some pressure should work. Dust all the openings that the wasps use to enter the nest. Other over the counter wasp sprays will likely damage your sails.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Wayfarer1008

As I said on another thread you may just want to go out and invest in aa couple yellow jacket traps. They contain a pheromone that attracts the yellow jackets to instead of the nest trapping them until you dispose of its contents. One the numbers are down in the cool of the night you should be able to get the cover off. from there its a case of raising the sail "From a distance and getting the nest off.

Uhm, didn't he say WASPS? Is there a different pheromone for YJs vs. wasps? I honestly don't know and am asking.


And "...from a distance..." is kinda laughable. The only thing I can relate that to is a Judy Gold song. It's a sailboat, how far away can you get?!?

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Mike Banks

Sure. Wait until nightfall, when all of the wasps are sitting under the nest, then approach the nest and use a sheet of newspaper rolled up and lighted--which you then stick under the nest for a few seconds. Not enough to singe your sails or their covers.

That singes the wings off any guard wasps, and they immediately drop on to the deck. The smoke makes the nest unusable and any survivors abandon it. In the morning, remove the nest.

Really?


Somehow if someone told me to hold a lit anything close enough under my mainsail and cover that allowed the smoke to be useful to disturb something side, I would seriously wonder about the validity of that recommendation. Even if there is no breeze, to get close enough for that to work, you have to get close to the danged bugs which is what one is trying to avoid to begin with.


I don't get a lot of these recommendations at all, they make no logistical sense.


Sure, "set a fire under your mainsail." Yeah, right.

[Beavereater]

Stu, wasps include a lot of different species. Must of the aggressive ones like Yellow Jackets fall into the family Vespidae. Pheromone attractants would tend to be specific to only a few species. I personally wouldn't bother with yellow jacket traps unless I were having a large picnic during the late summer and I was trying to keep them out of the quests beers and sodas.

[Wayfarer1008]

I have a funny story with yellow Jackets. I grew Up in Portland Oregon in the Southwest hills on about 2.5 acers that had Fanno Creek running down the back. On year when I was like 7 Yellow jackets took over a gopher hole in the back and became quite a pest of themselves. As Kids looking for adventure we decided to destroy the nest. First we attacked it with sticks with of course everyone getting stung and run off. so our next attack was with BB guns blasting away at the nest but that did not seem to do that much. the next move was with firecrackers, cherry bombs and smoke bombs. Most never went off in that we were to scared to stand there and light it or they blew up outside the nest. One night my dad fed up with us coming back all stung up decided to put an end to the nest so one night he went down to the nest and filled the hole with gasoline and set it alight. Once lit all of those fireworks that we had thrown down the hole exploded ending flaming chunks of dirt Yellow Jacket and nest fragments everywhere in a big cloud of smoke.

[a64pilot]

I have a funny yellow jacket story too.
I was a kid squirrel hunting with my father, I had shot a squirrel with my .410 and was retrieving it and was having a tough time getting thru the thorny vines when the Yellow Jackets hit me.
I was stung over 50 times in the head alone and went unconscious and rushed to the hospital.
To this day I’m allergic to them.

[chris mac]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I have a funny yellow jacket story too.
I was a kid squirrel hunting with my father, I had shot a squirrel with my .410 and was retrieving it and was having a tough time getting thru the thorny vines when the Yellow Jackets hit me.
I was stung over 50 times in the head alone and went unconscious and rushed to the hospital.
To this day I’m allergic to them.

Similar account, later in life though. I was about mid thirties, working on a house. I was in my manlift 40' up wedged between an ancient spruce tree and the house, stapling house wrap on with a hammer tacker. Apparently yellow jackets don't like hammering on the wall just below the nest.
As I was working my neck started to burn, I reached back and rubbed it and then my hand started to burn. Looking up I saw a swarm of them and a nest about the size of a football.
I took at least 50 hits by the time I got down, and took out just about every branch on one side of that spruce. (the home owners were pissed about that! I really didn't care;-)
I didn't pass out, but was in bad shape for a week. Since then a single sting and I swell up bad!
They really aren't something to mess around with.