War of the Wasps

🐞Most people seem to bee terrified of insects, especially bees and wasps. If you have ever been stung by one, and most of us have, then you know why people are so afraid of something so small. I have always found most bees and wasps fairly easy to get along with if you followed a few simple rules. My mom taught me a long time ago that if you were careful and most importantly didn't slap and swat at bees they usually wouldn't bother you. If left alone they will just go on their way to the next flower or where ever they might be going. Mom showed me that you could very gently pet a bumble bee in the cool of an early morning while the bee was still in a flower where it had spent the night. At that time they are usually still to cold to be much of a danger. Since we lived mostly in the desert where it gets cooler at night in the summer than it does in the southern climates I don't know if this would be a wise thing to do in say Florida, or even where I now live in Kentucky.
      But wasps, yellowjackets, and hornets are a totally different insect. Every where I have lived there have always been bees and wasps, but not excessively. Here in Kentucky it seems to be a different story as far as the wasps and bumblebees are concerned. Everyone must have problems with wasps as the stores have large display areas of all kinds of sprays to get rid of them.
     The house we bought a few months ago has two small wooden sheds in the back. We thought they would be great for storage of things like gardening tools, and things we don't use very often like holiday decorations. When we looked in them before buying the property we saw they were full of 'junky stuff'. We never expected that the previous owner would leave all of the 'junky stuff' for us to have to dispose of.
    It was still winter when we started the project of cleaning out the sheds.We saw some old wasp nests but no wasps, so we didn't think to much about them at that time.
    We weren't surprised to find that they were full of mice. Our property is right on the edge of a large, wooded area with soy bean fields across the road from us. I guess no one had been into these sheds and done anything with what was in there in many years. The mice had found the boxes of Christmas, Halloween, and Easter decorations wonderful homes. They had shredded boxes of all kinds of papers, photos, books, old clothes and who knows what all else into into nice little mouse beds where they had raised many generations of mouse families. The sheds provided shelter and the woods and fields provided food.
    We tackled the project with long pants and long-sleeved shirts, with the addition of gloves, hats and face masks. We watched as mice ran out of boxes and usually under the sheds (they are raised up on wooden blocks about 6 inches tall.). A few times we had to jump out of the way to keep a mouse from climbing up our legs. You had to feel a little bit sorry for the little critters as they had lived safely there so long and now were having to go out into the big. wide world.
   It was early spring when we started cleaning the sheds in earnest but it wasn't long before the weather warmed and we discovered we not only had mice in the sheds but lots and lots and lots of wasps and a kind of very aggressive bumble bee.
    The mice, time and weather had made a large, shredded pile of what looked like cloth, paper, and maybe foam from some sort of pillow or cushion. The bumble bees were using that for a nest. It was at that time that I was stung by a bee on the side of my face. A bee that was very mad that something was attaching it's home and babies (larvae). Yes, it hurt. And I had a large bruse for some time. I used  an ice pack, and some sort of spray for insect bites that I had in the house followed by a paste of baking soda and water. Like Mom had taught me. Hubby managed to use a snow shovel to pick up the whole mess and put it into a large plastic bag. With more spraying we were not seeing any more of the bumble bees.
     But wasps were a different story. We would spray them and wait a few days a do a bit of work. With the additional problems of rain, rain, and more rain, and then some sickness, followed by hot weather that was a lot more humid that we had ever worked in it seemed as if we would never get finished cleaning up those two sheds. Finally one shed was cleaned out, washed out with a strong spray of the water hose and allowed to dry.
      While we were working on that shed the wasps had really been at work making their round, paper-like nest with holes in them for the baby wasps to grow in. We sprayed again. (we wondered if we should invest in the companies that make the spray). I wonder why I didn't think to take some photos of the sheds and the wasps. I usually take photos of everything.
      And let me say I do not like using any kind of chemical in my house or yard. In the house I use vinegar and baking soda to clean with. Worse case I might use some Lysol.
      I raise my share of flowers and vegetables in my yard each summer and I do all of it organically. I have always liked the bees and other insects that pollinate my flowers. I prefer to use horse manure for fertilizer and if I have insects that damage my plants I find another insect that will get rid of the bad one or else pick them off and destroy them by hand. I find ladybugs are great to eat aphids, and only thing that can be done for tomato worms or squash bugs is to pull them off and kill them.
    The only thing I use the chemical sprays for is the wasps.
So now we are working on the second shed. The one with the most wasps in it. We have sprayed some more and we can't get rid of all of them. It makes me wonder if the spray doesn't get in to the nest where the queen and all the babies are. I have read about wasps on the internet and found out that although all the worker wasps die when the freezing weather comes, the queen will hibernate and over winter under some leaves in a sheltered area to start the colony over the next spring. There are several different kinds of wasps in Kentucky and as bad as these are they aren't as bad as the hornets and yellowjackets. But those are not so apt to nest in sheds and under the eves of houses. Another thing to remember is that a honey bee can only sting once and then it dies. A wasp can sting and sting. If stung you need to check the sting to make sure the stinger is not still in you. If it stays it can cause an infection. The wasps can sting multiple times but they can also leave the stinger in you.
   I was stung the other day before I realized there was another nest in the shed. I was stung once on my right hand and twice on the left hand. I ran cold water on my hands. Used an ice pack for a few minutes while my husband made a baking soda paste. After having the paste on the sting areas for about an hour the pain began subsiding. By the next day I hardly knew I had been stung.
   But I was one of the lucky ones. Many people are highly allergic to the sting of a bee, wasps, or bite of a spider or the large red ants that hurt so bad. If you have been lucky enough to never have been stung or bit and then you should be very careful if you are stung. If you have any problems get medical attention right away. If you have a child stung watch them for any signs of problems. Please. I have a friend who is very allergic to bee stings and has to get to a doctor right away if stung. I have heard that that people die every year from bee stings.
   The second shed is about half way cleaned out. There are dead wasps all over the floor. And a dead wasp can still sting you if you touch the stinger. We will keep working on the shed. We will win this war.