we came back from a couple weeks of canoeing to find that Yellow Jacket hornets built a very large nest in the dog house.
the canoe dogs really use that because it gives them a good view out into the alley so they can put the woof on passing strangers,watch for my wife to come home too!
so anyway i gave the nest a hit of bug killer that evening and next day pulled out the nest and washed out the inside and the rugs and dog toys.
so the thought hit me,what if you went to your hide away or set up camp to wait out a storm that was pounding your home by the sea or whatever only to find a nest of nasty local stinging bugs?
i know some folks have the "don't bother them,won't bother you" philosophy but i would rather be able to move around a long term camp or clear out my shack than live around something that stings hard.
so i would suggest adding a can of bug killer to the Bug Out Bag

CD, I'll bet you get lots of stinging responses to your post...

It can be more than just hornets. I have done projects where the first order of business was to clean up a mouse-infested line shack so that we woulld have a place out of the weather to cook and work. It wasn't a trivial task - until we tried to use the oved, we did not realize that the space beneath the broiler pan had been a mousie condo!

Lots of nasty critters like to shack up in old, disused abodes.

Yellow jacket hornets? I don't know if I'm familiar with those.

Up here we have yellow jacket wasps, and they are miserable, aggressive little buggers that will sting without provocation. They're even worse (positively psycho) in the fall when they have nothing to lose and are going after fruit and anything sweet and fermenty. There is no question of live and let live with these little monsters; they won't, so I don't either.

On the other hand, the bald-faced hornets we have up here are formidable but don't generally bother people unless their nests are threatened. Then, they are bloody dangerous.

There are other wasps such as paper wasps that only defend a threatened nest. Otherwise they leave you alone; and they are quite effective pollinators to boot.

Before taking out a yellowjacket wasp nest or a hornet nest, I try to thin their numbers down. A trap made from an 2-litre soda pop bottle with some sweet Coke (non diet) and ripe fruit in the bottom can catch hundreds if hung near their nest. I have seen several of these full to the brim near a hornet nest that was too close for comfort.

One year, we had an unbelievable explosion of yellow jacket wasps. It was a drought year, and birds and bees couldn't get anywhere near the bird baths that I keep filled no matter what. Every surface was literally encrusted with desperate wasps. So I got out my biggest shop vac and a 10-12 foot length of pipe and vacuumed up thousands and thousands. I tracked down a couple of big ground nests that were the source of most of them. In a damp year, I would just pour a cup of white gas down the hole, wait for a fuel-air mix, and throw in a flaming torch (whump! fixed). But the drought made that far too dangerous, so I carefully put an even longer pipe next to their hole and connected the shop vac. It ran all day, and across the yard I could hear the rattle of the little buggers bouncing down the pipe. At dusk, I pulled the pipe in and sucked up a cup of straight bleach. Problem solved.

For late season nests, I wait for a morning where there's a light frost and they can't really move. I knock the whole works into a garbage bin with a tight lid and let the weather do the rest.

If desperate, though, I guess I would consider a bug bomb. Most of these (especially the less nasty varieties) have a shelf life of maybe a year, so an old can won't help much.

Bug bombs and pesticides are too indiscriminate, and in this case unnecessary.

My suggestion is bring a raw pork butt roast with you, some string, a bucket, and a thimble of liquid soap.

String up the roast near their nest, put the bucket 2/3 full of water under it, and dump in the soap. The yellowjackets will get a whiff of that roast ripening, go after it and gorge themselves. They can't fly away, so they drop to the ground and land in the bucket and drown.

I have filled a 5 gallon bucket like that back in Walla Walla. Cleared out all the yellowjackets in the neighborhood for the rest of the summer.

You might have to put it in a place where the bears and critters can't get to it easily. But I've strung up roasts at hunting camp more than once, and it works in a day. It'll work on wasps and hornets.

Seriously? This is ingenious, Benjamin! Does this work only for yellow jackets, or for all wasps? I just might try this!

Interesting. What time of year did you do this? It makes sense, since at a certain point in their grubs' development the adults are busy hunting meat for them. But I didn't know they would gorge themselves to the point they couldn't fly. Something about raw, funky pork in particular?

Or maybe not. The bottle traps I built got pretty ripe when the first dead hornets started to decompose. And yet they kept coming in. Maybe the funky smell was part of what made it attractive.

i'm lucky. where I go in the Sierras we do have wasps. i think they are so-called "paper wasps" but can't be sure about that. but they are very mild mannered. they are not aggressive. they do buzz around and can be numerous ... but they are just after salt, water or protein. nothing more. try putting a little meat juice on your finger and hold it out - see what happens. a lot of them show up. but they are only feeding, not attacking. so long as you remain calm - all is good.

I am guessing the yellow jackets are a lot the same way. maybe a bit more territorial. it does not pay to show agitation around wasps.

I do not like insecticides. they are some of the most toxic and environmentally damaging chemicals ever invented by man.

anyway, my solution is this. open a can of tuna fish.
walk about 40 yards from camp. find tree and smear some tuna (with juice) on the bark of the tree. i normally do it on a rough-barked tree like a pine - so the bits of tuna are caught on the edges of the bark. within about 15-30 mins all the wasps will go over there, and your camp site will be empty. they are just foraging. I put the "meat" for the wasps up high to avoid ants, that's all.

Pete2

Doug..wasps,hornets,i guess i was just using the wrong name as we just call them yellow jackets and they can be nasty.
i still have a bite mark on my hand where a bald face got me when i was taking photos of mushrooms on a canoe trip last year,i must of got too close to the nest.
i know bug spray is nasty stuff but the way i look at it in the last five years i have only used it twice in my yard.if i was hosing down every wasp/hornet that comes around i would be knee deep in empty cans.....

Nope. Not even close. Unless "a bit more" means that anything and everything within a hundred yards is the divinely given property of each individual yellow jacket wasp, and therefore it can do whatever it pleases for any (or no) reason ... because that's how they behave.

Ben..the garden catalogs have gizmos for trapping and killing wasps/hornets.a one way plastic gate pushed into a old pop bottle is a common item,but no where near as dramatic as your method!!!!