rot wrote:..
Yellow Jackets are wasps. If you end up with a nest they'll clean up all the pests in your yard for about two weeks. After that the food's gone and they get mean.
I can't decide if I'd want to suffer them or the pests they'd keep out.
to sense
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ok this is cool:
Adult yellow jackets feed only on nectar and fruit juices using their long tongues, while animal tissues (mostly insects and other arthropods, but occasionally carrion) are fed to larvae. Larvae jiggle around in their cells alerting nearby workers that they are hungry. A worker will then proceed to go out and capture a prey item. She then cuts the prey item into manageable pieces and carries it back to the nest piece by piece. Once the prey item is in the nest the worker masticates (chews) a piece of the prey into a paste with her mandibles. The workers then feed the larvae by tickling them. This tickling causes the larvae to secrete a liquid from their salivary glands. The worker feeds on the liquid, and while she is drinking she transfer the chewed up paste to the larvae. This process is termed malaxation. (Andrews, 1969; Duncan, 1939; Ross and Matthews, 1991)
They must not be honey bees, on e in you compost pile and two they don't usually attack this early in the season and not multiple times either.
We stirred up several nest at our job site today in our scaffolding. I can tell you that in a pinch WD-40 and a lighter is very effective. We were being swarmed by them every time we turned around. so it was them or us.
Bees will get minerals from the compost. Not a good place for a successful hive so they won't build one there.
Can you just cave in the yellow jacket nest? They probably will not dig out. Try a yellow jacket trap. Like a fly trap, just use a piece of meat for bait.
I don't know what one may do, but I wish to make it clear that the bees that I found are definitely honey bees: cute, buzzing and busy -- in my 4'x4'x4' plastic compost container. At first I thought they were yellow jackets. A close and very careful but prolonged inspection proved them to be honey bees.
I live in Colorado about 50 miles east of Denver in hay, wheat, sorghum, corn and millet country.
It was surprising to find them in the middle of winter after many snowfalls and a multitude of sub-zero nights.
There actually are such things as ground nesting bees, but it may welll be wasps. Ground nesting bees are usually very docile and are pollinators. Wasps on th other hand are not so friendly. Neither one likes to live in the damp and prefer to nest in dry ground. Getting a positive id would be helpful in figuring out how to control or induce them to go somewhere else. It is easier to move them before they become established. They probably like the compost pile because it is warm and dry.
This was an old thread from 2010 -- but I guess a new post was made because exactly the same question came up? If after reading the earlier posts, you are pretty sure they are honey bees, then I think the thing to do would be to contact your local honeybee keepers association and see if someone could come and see.
I assume you wand to have your compost pile back? Do you want the bees to be removed? Do you want to set up your own beehive?
As mentioned earlier in the thread, for removal, my local bee hotline contacted a willing bee keeper in the area who will come out and verify if they are honeybees and remove them for free if they are. If they are not, as in our case, he didn't charge for the house call, but said we were on our own for their removal. But I understand everyone has different rates for these kinds of services.
If they are yellow jackets or other non-honeybees that don't need to be saved, time to eliminate them is now while it's cold and they are sluggish. I would avoid exterminators who would spray them down with poison especially if you want to use your compost for growing edibles.
If you want to set up your own hive, I think first step would be to check local regulations and to attend workshops and take some lessons. I have a friend who teaches beekeeping and she said a percentage of her students find out that they can't after getting to the hands-on part of the lessons.
We had a honeybee swarm on the weeping cherry some years earlier, but I didn't know about contacting the bee keepers and we left them alone -- the swarm took off after a day or so but if it ever happens again, I would definitely call and see if any bee keepers in the area would want to collect them.
