As Hank Hill said, taste the meat, not the heat

[Aunt Phil]

MEMO to Nola
Print this and save for future use

I like to think I'm pretty easy going when it comes to Nature and Mother's creations, but there are times when I just gotta make an adjustment.

I'm fine with Bumblebees and honeybees, but hornets, paper wasps and ground wasps are critters I'll never reach what the fancy folk call detante with.  Rode across what is loosely defined as the lawn Friday and noticed a high volume takeoff/landing operation so I vectored off to ride by for an observation.  Sure as hell, the damn ground wasps setting up a condo on my land, and not so much as a penny by their door to help with taxes.

Prior experience told me to note the location for my return after dark. 

I checked the diameter of the entrance and selected an appropriate torch.  Propane/air for economy of operation.  Odd thing about ground wasps, they have sentrys out at night and one of them bit me on the ankle while I was pondering their fate.  That sealed the deal!

75,000 btu torch head direct into the entrance hole sort of ended the traffic.  Might have incinerated a few kinwasps of the sumbeach who bit me too.  After a few minutes of roasting, I took a ground probe to the area beyond the entrance and located their main chamber.  Poked a few holes and watched the smoke head up taking wasp bits to their next life.

With a decent opening in the top for venting, I cooked another 10 minutes give or take, and shut the torch down.

Following morning I noted a few wasps coming and going, sort of hauling off salvage to a new location.  Then their roof collapsed showing the crater was about the size of a basketball.  I relit the torch and placed it to warm their little hearts for a while.  The dumb ones flew right into the hole and sort of cooked off. 

Now I'm wondering, what the hell they did with all the dirt they hauled off building the project.  Second question, would it be proper to erect some sort of monument?

[Bill Houghton]

Another note to Nola: don't try to kill gophers and moles by filling their tunnels with acetylene and then lighting it off.

The maintenance foreman at the Jr. College where I worked some years back created some real excitement in his backyard when he did that once.

And Phil: you didn't see their tiny little wingybarrows (like wheelbarrows, but with airfoils on each side so they can fly away, pushing it) when they were making the nest?

[Nolatoolguy]

Hahaha nice.

Nothing beats a torch, well ok maybe a can of raid or whatever other animal killer spray stuff would of worked as well.

A kid I didn't really know much but went to high school with in Louisiana was severely burned after trying to get rid of red ants. He poured gas on the ant hill, lit it an then tripped with gas can in his hand. Spent four monthes in the hospital cause burns an a infection. He was lucky to survive.

[amecks]

Well I'm not familiar with ground wasps but we had cicada killer wasps in our front yard.  The females are very large - as big as your little finger - as big as a cicada -  which when you see one flying through the air carrying a cicada is something you want to duck!  The males are about half the size of the females but they will circle the nest all day in groups of several males in hopes of mating.  They are relatively harmless.  They'll sting but rarely and there sting is said to be not really bad.  But I don't want to test that theory.
The female digs a nest in the ground diagonally 6 or so inches and then digs about 5 lateral tunnels about the same length, one for each larva.  The cicada is brought back to the nest and put in the tunnel for the larva to eat when it hatches.  The dirt excavated forms piles outside the nest that look like anthills.
They were so profuse one year I went out in the yard with a can of starting fluid (DON'T DO THIS!) and blew up some nests.  The flames could be seen through the lawn as they flashed through the tunnels and subsequently caught the grass on fire, which I had to stomp out!
Al