Remember a couple of weeks ago I reported about a yellow hornet nest in my spa on the back porch? Well, after several battles, and a change in weapons, the smoke cleared and they are GONE!
Those things are nasty! They are like pissed off creatures that are just looking for something to sting. During that couple of weeks my back porch was a very scary place to be, and watering the plants on the front porch sort of near the nest was not an enjoyable chore.
I used the soapy water/light over the pan method for about a week then my boyfriend offered the use of his “bug zapper”. I’ve never been a fan of bug zappers because they attract all sorts of beneficial bugs as well as the pesky ones like mosquitoes. However, in this situation, the bug zapper seemed worth a try.
I was able to sit it right at the entrance of the nest so they had to fly around it to get into the hole–that fact alone caught lots of them. I didn’t really notice many other bugs in the ashes and debris–probably because they wouldn’t want to come near the hornets’ nest either.
This is what I found the day I removed the zapper from the area:
Originally the zapper was sitting directly on the porch but one of the hornets caught on fire one night so I placed it on an upside-down pot for fire protection. (I could actually smell the smoke from the bug on fire). Notice the pile of pieces and parts.
I had to unplug the zapper 3 times during that two weeks to take it to the shop to blow out all the hornet carcasses so the unit wouldn’t short out.
The soapy water worked and would probably have eventually wiped out the nest, but the zapper made it a little more interesting because I could actually hear the bugs frying 🙂 Now the dogs and I have all our porches back–oh and the spa too, just gotta get that pump changed out.
Wild Things Farm 