Greetings, Freedom Forever:
Those "meat bees," as they are called, are the very essence of a true plague. If you think things are bad now, just wait a few more weeks. The hive population of these "spawn of the devil" increases geometrically as the summer progresses. They have absolutely no shame, and the concept of fear does not register with them at all.
They will fly right into your sandwich and eat it out from under you. If you appear take exception to their presence on your corn beef extravaganza, they simply put the "bite" to you. (unlike a true bee, these insects are "hornets." They bite, they do not "sting.")
A favorite activity for these varmints to engage in is called:
"Rowing in the Root Beer"!
At a picnic, when you are not paying attention, they will crawl into your open can of pop. Then, when take your next swig, Guess what! The can goes one way, and the hornet goes the other.
The owner of the pop can usually "goes down for the count!"
Now, here's a word of caution. Usually some time in middle or late September, the weather begins to cool and nights actually get cold. The rule of thumb is: The colder the nights, the meaner the hornet! By the first week of October, they will attack anything that moves into their field of vision! They become unbelievably irritable!
These insects are the F16's of the animal world. They are absolute masters of their environment. I have sat and watched them hunt and it is a phenomenal education in predatory behavior! The primary thing I learned by watching them is:
THANK THE LORD THAT THEY AREN'T THE SIZE OF A DOG!
Now, for the good news!
There are ways to reduce the effect these mini hounds from hell can have on your summer!
I maintain a dozen or so honey bee hives. Hornets are absolute death on honey bees. They can destroy a colony of bees in no time at all, steal all the honey, and then bite the living daylights out of you when you show up to see why all your honey bees are DOA!
It is for this reason that I have learned what must be done in order to fight back!
The first thing to remember is that unlike honey bees, the individuals in a colony of hornets do not overwinter.
Only certain individuals that are designated as "Queens" will survive the winter. The rest of the colony dies.
So...
The first level of attack is in early spring. For the first month or so, the queen has no workers to do her bidding. So she must forage for herself. Hornets are not particular about what they eat. There is only one item on their menu, ...ANYTHING! With no surplus of insects yet to dine on, the hornet queens will many times show up on anything that is early blooming. They are easy to spot because they look just like a regular hornet, but are about half again bigger! It is at this point that you take the opportunity to introduce her majesty to a can of Raid! This is important because for every queen that you send on her way to an early sabbatical in heaven, there will be at least a thousand LESS hornets to make your life miserable in August and September!
The second thing that can be done is to take some time and seek out the nests.
This is not as easy as it sounds because, unlike Wasps, hornets are much more difficult to follow home!
Yellowjackets are generally a ground dweller and will occupy any hold in the ground. The house already has an owner? Not a problem! They simply evict the squirrel or the snake or who ever is in their way of domestic bliss.
Speaking of houses, upon occasion, ground hornets will also move into attics of houses. When this happens, it is not a good thing!
The unsuspecting homeowner finds himself in a world of hurt! literally!
The best way to keep down the number of hornets in an area is simply to trap them into oblivion.
I do this by taking a dozen or so 2 liter clear plastic pop bottles and inserting a piece of three quarter inch PVC pipe through the bottle at a point about 5 inches from the bottom.
I scoop out a small segment of the pipe first so that there is an opening in the pipe, inside the bottle.
They put about an inch or so of root beer in the bottom of the bottle. Drill a small hole in the cap and insert a string.
Hang the finished bottle in the nearest tree and start collecting hornets!
It works like a dream!
I usually hang a dozen such bottles around my bee hives.
The hornets end up trapped in the bottle and eventually do the backstroke to sarsaparilla purgatory!
It is important to change the contents of the bottle when it gets too full. 100 to 300 hornets in a bottle usually mean it's time to "freshen" things up a bit.
Over the course of a summer I usually trap in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 thousand hornets!
It makes all the difference in the world.
Since I have been doing this, our picnics are actually enjoyable, barbecues no longer resemble raids by the James gang, and my kids no longer beg and plead to avoid being sent out of doors.
It takes consistency, however. You must make it part of your daily or semi daily routine to check the traps and add more root beer if needed.
A small price to pay to be able to take back your summer!
-CliffMickelson
