Hidden in the small hole in the center of this picture just to the left of the gloriosa daisies is a hornet's nest as big as a basketball. I just happened to notice the parade of bees flying in and out, when Ed and I were touring the garden. After working near to this spot just the other day, I am feeling very lucky indeed. I'm not fond of bee stings. Just writing about this kind of gives me the shivers.
The garden path that passes by this spot is now off limits until we can find a way to evict these ill tempered tenants. Since we won't use the nasty chemical hornet spray ,we need to look for alternative, clever , outside-the-box solutions. Paramount in importance is that no one gets stung. While we ponder this problem the nest will be given a wide berth.
Ed tried placing some hot coals under the nest with little success. I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be if a skunk were to discover the nest.I've had help from them eliminating a yellow jacket nest in the past. Who would think I would be wishing for skunks to visit the garden? Sometimes what seems like a bad thing is really a very a good thing.
4 comments:
With wasps using a fake nest works - a paper bag with ripped up newspaper is sufficient, but I have no exprience of Hornets...
I hope you manage to get rid of them, Wasps are bad enough never mind their larger brothers!
Aunt Becky and Uncle Ed,
Check out this website. http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-hornets.htm
It has a couple of ideas how to "naturally" get rid of hornets or wasps. When mom and dad had a hornet/wasp problem they found that the water bottle/soda bottle with a yellow liquid worked well. They fly in being attracted to the liquid but can't seem to get out. Hope this helps. Sandy
Wow, good luck getting them out of there Becky. I had a yellow jacket nest buried near our swingset...a few years ago. Was I surprised when I started digging to work in the ground one day! They flew up my pant-legs, down my shirt, and stung me so many times I lost count. They also stung through my clothing so all in all, I had a LOT of stings! I ran in the house and took everything off, and there were several still on my skin after I took off my clothes. UGH! We got some type of 'bomb' but I have no idea what it was. It kind of exploded them out of there. It may have had chemicals, though...so it's probably not what you'll be looking for.
Becky,
Your best bet might be leetting the hornets have this spot in the garden. We recently had a paper nest (Bald-faced Hornets these are wasps BTW)being built onto the receiver of our satellite dish right over our walkway. After about a month the nest seems empty, the rains or maybe it was raided by something.
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