Bees in the ground [UPDATE] Tried to dig it up...

[Miss M]

Gasoline is fast and effective. ...

Yes it is. When I was a kid we use to put gas in our squirt guns and shoot them right out of the air with it. They would fold up in mid air and hit the ground dead. (yea I use to run with scissors too.)

:rotfl:

 

[michaels4gardens]

my method was similar, a half gallon of gas, a 5 gal bucket, put the gas in the bucket, pour the gas in the hole, and push the bucket down over the hole-then- leave..[immediately]...

 

[Lastfling]

It's not that hard. Just wait till after dark take a pop bottle full of gas to the hole, upend it in the hole leaving it stuck in the hole and walk away. They should be gone by morning. The reason you wait for dark is all the bee's will be back in the hole and they don't fly after dark.

 

[Rabbitdog]

It's not that hard. Just wait till after dark take a pop bottle full of gas to the hole, upend it in the hole leaving it stuck in the hole and walk away. They should be gone by morning. The reason you wait for dark is all the bee's will be back in the hole and they don't fly after dark.

Ditto, if you're dealing with yellow jackets (but I doubt it).
Don't light it!!!! The fumes are much more lethal than the fire. Just cover the hole, so the fumes don't escape and problem solved. Of course, if you don't know what you're going after (they may be some sort of harmless sweat bees), then you've just created a solution while searching for a problem.

 

[Miss M]

my method was similar, a half gallon of gas, a 5 gal bucket, put the gas in the bucket, pour the gas in the hole, and push the bucket down over the hole-then- leave..[immediately]...

It's not that hard. Just wait till after dark take a pop bottle full of gas to the hole, upend it in the hole leaving it stuck in the hole and walk away. They should be gone by morning. The reason you wait for dark is all the bee's will be back in the hole and they don't fly after dark.

My uncle's was the paranoid "I have no idea what to expect, so I'll pour the gas long-distance and run like mad" version.

 

[Deer Heart]

It's not that hard. Just wait till after dark take a pop bottle full of gas to the hole, upend it in the hole leaving it stuck in the hole and walk away. They should be gone by morning. The reason you wait for dark is all the bee's will be back in the hole and they don't fly after dark.

Ditto, if you're dealing with yellow jackets (but I doubt it).
Don't light it!!!! The fumes are much more lethal than the fire. Just cover the hole, so the fumes don't escape and problem solved. Of course, if you don't know what you're going after (they may be some sort of harmless sweat bees), then you've just created a solution while searching for a problem.

I HIGHLY doubt they are sweat bees. There is thousands of them in one hole and the hole had very papery walls with tubular builds to it. ( I believe based on the opening this nest was built inside of a failed gopher tortoise hole, the picture doesn't give it credit either, the black hole you see was slightly larger than a quarter and was very papery)

 

[coyotejoe]

A friend had a colony of bees in the ground under his apple tree and didn't really want to mess with them. He had to leave for a month and while he was gone a bear dug out the bees, problem solved. :lol:

 

[Miss M]

A friend had a colony of bees in the ground under his apple tree and didn't really want to mess with them. He had to leave for a month and while he was gone a bear dug out the bees, problem solved. :lol:

Wow, give that bear a "no hunting" sign!

 

[coyotejoe]

Unfortunately the bear also broke a couple of limbs of the apple tree while helping himself to ALL of the apples.

 

[Miss M]

Hmmm... :hmm: I'd consider the debt to the bear paid, then. Open season!

 

[Lastfling]

Around here, not so much bears, but skunks love to dig them out and eat the larvae. The down side is, is waiting for the skunk to find it. LOL

 

[imajpm]

Shop vac with soapy water. stick vacuum end next to the hole, turn on, and come back later

 

[michaels4gardens]

Shop vac with soapy water. stick vacuum end next to the hole, turn on, and come back later

that's a good idea...

 

[Deer Heart]

UPDATE!

I'm super excited to say - we closed! :mbounce: :happy: :mbounce:

I went right to work last night. The closing meeting ended around 5PM. The Yellow jackets - and they were Yellow jackets - were dead by 6pm. We used gasoline.

They were dead before any of them even had a chance to reach the edge of the hole, not one took flight.

The nest is MASSIVE with at least 6 "entrance holes". We poured the gas over all of the holes.

I'm going back today to pick up more garbage from the property (and burying my rabbit that perished about a month ago if anyone recalls the moon tune necropsy thread) and will be burying the nest in as well If I'm brave, I might actually dig it up to see how big it was.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

:congratulations:

Enjoy your new place!

I have a peculiar story about yellow jackets...

I used to have a little pedestal bird bath set up in my kitchen garden, which had a 1/4" drip line set up to drip water continuously into it since moving water is more attractive to birds.

One day a friend of ours stopped by, and we decided to sit on the entry porch next to the garden and enjoy the day. We hadn't been sitting there long before a yellow jacket came and started circling me, and then hovering directly in front of my face at a distance of about six inches.

It was soon joined by another, and another, and another until there were a couple dozen doing the exact same thing. Circle, circle, circle, make eye contact, circle, circle, circle. :?

Dan looked at me in bafflement (they weren't paying him any attention!), when I suddenly had an "Ah-ha!" moment. I got up and walked over to the bird bath- followed by my swarm of yellow jackets!- and sure enough, it was dry as a bone! I had forgotten to turn the drip line on that morning.

As soon as they had water, they were content to leave me alone, and Dan and I resumed our conversation on the porch.

Nature never ceases to amaze me.

I'm sure many of us have had this experience with humming birds when their feeders run dry, which is pretty amazing in and of itself, but insects? How in the world would they realize that humans are responsible for their water source, let alone a particular individual?!? :shock:

 

[MaggieJ]

That is totally amazing, MSD!!! :lol: :shock:

 

[Easy Ears]

We hadn't been sitting there long before a yellow jacket came and started circling me, and then hovering directly in front of my face at a distance of about six inches.

It was soon joined by another, and another, and another until there were a couple dozen doing the exact same thing. Circle, circle, circle, make eye contact, circle, circle, circle. :?

That would be the end for them if that were me. I would have brought out my trusty fly swatter, and they would have been saying their last words very soon. :lol:

After being stung by a yellow jacket on my arm, they are my eternal enemy.
I've spent hours with a fly swatter on my grandparents old porch killing them and lining their dead bodies on the rail. This acts as bait for others to come. Yes, they are cannibals, and yes, the ones here eat meat.

I have some friends that go camping quite often, and they said on a few occasions they had in the mountains the bees were so bad! So many, and very aggressive. What they did is hang a large piece of meat above a bucket of water, and put a thin film of oil on the surface of the water. When the bees gorged themselves on the meat the would fall off bloated and into the water. The oil coated their wings so they couldn't fly, and they drowned. Apparently they killed a LOT this way! :mrgreen:
Plus, the bees flocked to the meat, and left the campers alone.

 

[Deer Heart]

WELL, apparently gasoline did not kill all of them. They were swarming the nest again yesterday so tonight I am putting a large glass baking dish over the hole. I can't keep pouring gas into this nest since I think it might be too large for it to work. (it missed hundreds of them the first time)

__________ Sat Dec 12, 2015 10:53 pm __________

Okay, I tried the large dish but more keep turning up in the daylight, what the heck. Tonight I put pyrethrum-based garden dust everywhere to try and get any stragglers. I really don't see any holes that I missed with the dish and now I don't want to lift the dish. <br /><br /> __________ Sat Dec 19, 2015 7:03 pm __________ <br /><br /> More pictures I couldn't include in the first post. This nest is HUGE... I have no idea how huge as it still continued and I was too tired....

 

[akane]

I investigate nearly everything and the nest would be interesting but there is no way in hell I'd dig it up. A bee sting to my leg makes me unable to walk for a few weeks. I don't risk critters like that. If you need me I will be standing 20' away with my new flame thrower specifically to turn yellow jackets into crispy bits.

 

[Deer Heart]

I investigate nearly everything and the nest would be interesting but there is no way in hell I'd dig it up. A bee sting to my leg makes me unable to walk for a few weeks. I don't risk critters like that. If you need me I will be standing 20' away with my new flame thrower specifically to turn yellow jackets into crispy bits.

Honestly, I think I need your flamethrower. The house is supposed to go there and the nest made the ground too "spongey" which is the only reason I even started trying to dig it up. I need to get as much of it up as I can