Yellow Jackets And What Not To Do With Them Or To Them Given a choice of fighting an alligator or an angry rhino or a yellow jacket I’d pick the alligator and angry rhino at the same time before I’d tangle with yellow jacket. I’d attack the Gates of Hell before I’d attack a yellow jacket nest. I’d take a chance on a nuclear device in my pocket before a single yellow jacket. I get scared looking at what might be a yellow jacket. I don’t do well with pictures of them. I have had experience with them as have some friends. My own experience was horrible. I was cutting the back of my lot. I was using a riding mower. I was going along perfectly fine until I noticed something buzzing around. I thought they were bees. Bees really won’t bother you as long as you don’t bother them. That’s why we take the honey at night unless you’re a bear. Yellow jackets will bother you if they so much as see you. If you are stupid enough to bother them they take no responsibility for their actions. If you run over their nest with a riding mower all Hell breaks loose. I was thinking of riding away from them until I realized I could run faster then I could ride. While that’s true, it’s one of those useless truth like Prime Numbers. I couldn’t outrun the yellow jackets and Prime Numbers have no use. By the time I got to the back door I was hurt severely. I had a million stings on me. I pounded on the door and told my wife to yank the door open because the yellow jackets were making multiple attacks on me. She said she couldn’t let me in. “We have little kids here.” Well, damn, that’s right. I ran over to the hose and turned it on me. It seemed to help. After a while the yellow jackets left. It may have been because they took pity or got tired of stinging me. I suspect they were tired. I was pissed off and I needed to get revenge. I didn’t want a bunch of critters get the best of me. I decided to burn them out. No matter how tough they were they couldn’t survive fire. I got the gas can and sneaked up on the nest. I planned to pour it on the nest, throw a burning piece of newspaper on them and then run. It was a good plan in the garage. Out by the yellow jackets it wasn’t such a hot idea. I don’t know if they figured out what I was up to or just didn’t like the smell of gas. Just as I tossed some gas on them they attacked. I dropped the can and the burning paper. It did take the fire to their nest. It also exploded the can. It flew halfway to the house. It sounded like artillery fire. By the time I got to my car and jumped in for safety the yellow Jackets went away. Maybe they went to try to save the Queen or whatever they had. Maybe they went to try to save the dead. I was hoping they went to hell. I have a friend I’ll call Larry. It’s not so much to protect his identify or protect me from a lawsuit as it is that it’s his name. He told me he once ran over a yellow jacket nest and took off running. He said he made it to the corner of his house before he got stung. He says a lot of questionable things. He said he then jumped into the hot tub and went under. After holding his breath as long as he could he surfaced. They were waiting for him. He took as much air in as possible and dived back under. When he resurfaced again they were mostly gone. There were a few patrolling around aimlessly so he stayed in the tub. He got out and went into the house. His wife, Sherry, said, “What happened to you?” “I got into a fight with some yellow jackets.” “You lost.” Another friend. Tom, told me the way you get them is to sneak up on them at night. They don’t have good vision and they have to sleep sometime. You sneak up on the nest and slowly place newspaper over the top of the nest. Then you set the paper on fire. Yea? I sneaked up on them. I placed the newspaper on top of the nest. I lit the paper. A breeze took it off the top. Oh, now I have a fire to put out and a swarm of pissed off yellow jackets to contend with. I couldn’t let the fire go. Might burn the whole neighborhood down. I like some of my neighbors. The yellow jackets hit me like a bomber flight. I didn’t cry because a man doesn’t do that. The next night I sneaked up on the nest with poison. I spread it as thick as I could in the time I had. I didn’t stick around because I was afraid. A man can’t cry but he can be afraid. The next day I slowly approached the nest expecting to see dead yellow jackets. I saw the poison was all gone so I must have gotten all of them. I don’t think I got many of them. From the welts, I don’t think I got any of them. There has to be some way to get rid of them without chancing your own life. My wife said, “Call an exterminator. You know, someone who is an expert in this stuff.” You don’t really want to do that. No, you do want to do that but your pride tells you not to. Finally you give up. You’re tired of the running; you’re tired of the pain; You’re tired of the fear. Get an exterminator. Don’t ask around to get a good price. Whatever you pay is worth it. The person who comes out will be dressed like an astronaut and will look at you with a sneer and tell you to get out of the way. “Let an adult take care of this.”