Bee Careful

I am not an entomologist in any sense of the word. I know insects are beneficial for the diet of a bird or a contestant on a reality show, but I would rather not see any of them. There are exceptions of course such as lady bugs, butterflies, dragonflies, praying mantis and honey bees.

The problem is, I don't know exactly what a honey bee looks like. I have seen pictures and they look like they might be wearing a fuzzy little vest, but I don't like to get close enough to check. Since they are endangered, I hesitate to kill anything that looks like a bee until they enter their domains and then they are fair game. We have been inundated by wasps, hornets, yellow jackets and bees this year. We knock down a nest and the next week there are two in it's place.

It's hard to sit on the deck and eat dinner without being chased into the house. It's almost impossible to pick the blackberries without wearing a hazmat suit, and it's impossible to hang out a bird house because it is soon inhabited by hornets that chase away the birds. The hummingbirds have to fight off the wasps at their feeder and wasps have even taken up residence near my front door because it's close to my water fountain. When you add giant grasshoppers and flies to the mix, then I just want to stay indoors during certain times of the day.

This is a hornet's nest that we found out by the shed. It is huge...about the size of a cantaloupe.

This is nest #1 under the rail going up the deck steps...

Nests 2 and 3.....

Nests 4 and 5

Nest 6

Nest 7

Nest 8

And now we have 2 wasp nests (say that really fast 5 times) on the front porch .

The yellow jacket trap didn't work for us so we must not have too many of those. The spray works well on the nests but I hate having to use poison so much.

Wayne has been stung once. I haven't been yet, knock on wood....as long as that wood is not the rail going up the steps to the deck.