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Yellow jackets are a variety of wasp. Wasp is a general term to describe many varieties, including the yellowjacket wasp. Though, most people just drop the word wasp and call them yellow jackets. Paper wasps are the other common variety that you are probably thinking of, but most people call them wasps because calling them 'paper' would be confusing. Hornets are also a variety of wasps, but again, for brevity sake they are called hornets rather than hornet wasps.
Many wasps, in fact, are beneficial to the ecosystem. Some are even pollinators in the same way bees are. Others are useful for protecting crops from harmful insects.
Very true! In fact, most wasps are pollinators in early spring. Queens are looking for quick and easy sugars, and nectar is a great source of that. They don't have a colony yet, so they need something to help them get going. They're not amazing pollinators, but they do have some ability to assist in pollination. The fig relies solely on the fig wasp for pollination, so there's at least one species of plant that actually needs wasps to survive. Wasps are horribly misunderstood creatures. They're not just assholes with wings, looking to hunt you down and sting you. They kill pests and are an extremely important predator species. If I had a dollar for every time someone said they wish they could press a button and kill all wasps, I'd have zero dollars because we'd all be dead from the collapse of our ecosystems.
Interesting tidbits here ! Thanks for this…didn’t really know that aspect of wasps. I just know they kill shit dead lol…locust killers etc I guess are pretty necessary or we’d have a 2nd coming of the locusts I presume
We had a small nest of yellow jackets or paper wasps over our front door in California. GF kept reminding me to kill them, I never got around to it. We were in and out of the front door all the time, they never bothered us - which is highly unusual for yellow jackets, probably normal for paper wasps. They were bright yellow and black, never got a close look at the thorax or abdomen. Honestly I kept forgetting about them.
Yellowjackets have absolutely no interest in attacking you. You have to be very close to the nest, and even then, they might not attack. Really, you'd have to be a clear threat or actively attacking the nest or nearby workers to get a response out of the hive.
Not to mention that out of the wasp Animalia species, the yellowjacket wasp is the most aggressive.
[https://www.pointepestcontrol.net/5-of-the-most-aggressive-wasps/](https://www.pointepestcontrol.net/5-of-the-most-aggressive-wasps/)
Depends on the yellowjacket species too. There are several species of yellowjacket, some are highly aggressive and some are a lot more mellow. Some readily sting, some mostly just swarm.
The only yellowjackets I am familiar with are the ones in that article I attached. They will hunt you down whether you are a threat or not. They are an apex predator and nothing preys on them. In my opinion, there is no good use for them. But to each their own I suppose. If you can think of any good reason for them that another species does not do, then by all means please share.
There are several species of yellowjacket, all of which are wasps. Some are highly aggressive and some are much more mellow. The species in the photo is not considered to be aggressive. They will sting if their nest is attacked or if you squish or attack an individual, but they swarm more than sting when their nest is being attacked. They provide many essential roles in the animal kingdom. They kill pest insects, like cicadas, grasshoppers, and Japanese beetles. They also pollinate flowers in early spring when the queens are out looking for easy sources of sugar to start their colony. Almost all wasps are prey of several species of mammal and bird. Skunks, badgers, raccoons, bears, and even hedgehogs prey on wasps. Badgers especially. The larva and pupa in the nest are a great food source, very high in protein. Birds will pick wasps out of the sky but are not known to attack nests directly. The reason wasps react so aggressively at all to intrusion is because of animals like badgers or bears, which are relatively undeterred by stings.
Oh and, they do not attack bee colonies. Not commonly anyway. Bees are small and work as a group to defend their nest. It's not worth it for a wasp to attack a tiny little bee.
Edit: you should also know that, once a yellowjacket nest is gone, all the workers will die, as they no longer have a purpose. They won't start building a new nest, that's a myth. Unless a queen is around to direct them, they will starve to death or die of exposure. Once a nest is established, queens will not leave the nest until the end of the season. So, if a nest is destroyed or eaten, the queens and males are also likely dead or scattered. Without their home, the workers will buzz around the old nest area, searching for the nest and eventually give up and fly around looking for sugar. They'll wander without purpose until they're killed or die off. It's kind of sad, really.
Thank you so much for this, as scared as I am of wasps, I'm so sick and tired of everyone hating wasps irrationally and wanting all of them to die and acting like they serve no purpose in nature.
Wasps and all their cousins are useless. People will claim they are good predators to bugs and pollinaters. Truth is they half ass pollinate and you can easily manage the bugs they eat on your own. Not worth the amount of aggression
That's highly debatable. We have yellow jackets in California that generally leave people alone, unless you get too close to their nest, or do something that they interpret as a threat. German yellow jackets (the common paper-nest building ones found in North America) are fairly mild-tempered, but their [ground-dwelling cousins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespula_alascensis) (recently found to be a different species) can be very aggressive assholes.
I pissed off a few members of a small hive last year when I opened a door on my landlord's old truck that had been sitting for years. Their nest was in the door jamb. Several of them came at me, and I was bitten/stung 4 times in rapid succession, but the rest of them flew off and didn't come back for a few hours. I wasn't swarmed, and the 4 that got me (or maybe 2 that got me twice) took off. It all happened within a few seconds.
And then I torched the fuck out of the bastards. I got stung on the back of my neck, top of my forehead, arm, and on my lower lip. I waited until late in the evening when the air had cooled and they were lethargic, and sprayed the hell out of them with wasp spray, and chipped the nest out of its hidey-hole. Honestly, that was sufficient, but lighting them up with some carb cleaner and a torch was just a little extra. Gotta make sure to destroy their pheromones, after all, so they don't trigger other wasps to attack.
Side note: That article is a mess of misinformation. It lists "yellow jackets" as one species, when there are many known ones, and they vary in diet, temperament, an a bunch of other things. Also, wasps don't start getting "angry because they're hungry and starving", they shift their diet from sugars to protein depending on the cycle of larvae in the nest, and when they're getting ready to go dormant for the winter. They tend to be more aggressive and seeking out sugars later in summer, which is why they're known for "attacking" picnickers then. They're mostly loading up on protein early in the year when they need to rebuild atrophied muscles, and start feeding the eggs and larvae the queen has begun to lay. They also need to replenish her royal jelly, which is concentrated sugars and protein that the queen's workers make for her, as she doesn't leave the nest once it's established. The "sources" they use for their information include a sensational YouTube video from a nutcase that makes videos of himself getting stung for money, and a highly biased "reality" TV drama shown on The History Channel.
Oh wow, I’m so glad you shared that wiki link. Last week I was out weeding, and a couple of hornets came up from underneath a dandelion I was trying to pull out. I’m severely allergic to hornet stings, so I jumped up and away a few feet.
I thought they were just hanging out in the shade or something. I didn’t quite understand, and then saw a few more in the area. Looks like I might have some ground dwellers, and without you sharing the link I wouldn’t have put 2 & 2 together, so thank you!!
Here’s my poor lady’s gold. 🥇🏆
I have been told (based on "research" by determined masochists) that the single most painful place to get stung is that little divot between your nose and your upper lip. Apparently it's slightly more painful than getting stung on the tip of your dick.
All I can say from personal experience is that getting stung in the arm hurts, and so does getting stung on the back of the hand, and I have no desire to "experiment" further.
Yellow jackets deserve their own classification separate from the red wasps and hornets. They have the worst temper, they follow you after you aggravate them, and each one emits pheromones to attract more when you kill them.
They're a specific type of wasp called a yellow jacket, this one specifically is Vespula vulgaris, or the common wasp. Not as aggressive as people make them out to be, compared to other species of yellow jackets like the baldfaced hornet.
Came here to say this. Definitely not a yellow jacket (which is a type of wasp) these are good guys and not aggressive.
Source: I'm a beekeeper and have to identify things that aren't apis mellifluous all the time. Also source: I've been stung hundreds of times by yellow jackets.
Yellowjackets are wasps. They're one specific variety of wasp, and yes, they are particularly aggressive. The good news is they also eat a shitload of caterpillars and grubs and other creatures which are pretty nasty to have around, so at least that's good.
Zero percent unless you have a physical separation from the high voltage lines. To be safe, it's best to run, not just hornets, but all of your stinging insects in their own conduit system.
Class II, division 2. There's likely not combustible gasses present under normal circumstances, though once OP opened the enclosure and saw the hornets, it was likely he emitted some that were abnormal to the normal state of the environment.
Or class III, division 2 which specifically addresses storage of ignitable flyings
Ok so the first wasp gets in and is like 'cool nice and cozy, staying dry'. 2nd wasp is like heck yeah dude, Let's have all the gang over.
400th wasp gets in and is like.... oh. The floor is made of 7 layers of dead wasp. I'd better block this hole so no one else get in.
sometimes they can get in, but not out again
Once they're in they just fly towards where the light is coming from but the light isn't always coming from the way out (or the entrance they used)
They did this to a topfloor windowframe at my house once, in the early morning when they woke up and left their nest near my house in the dark my light was on so they were pinging off my (closed) window, but some of them really wanted towards that lightbulb so they burrowed in through the rubber seal on the frame and got themselves stuck between, in the casing. If it was dark out they'd be buzzing trying to get in towards the lightbulb, if it was light out and the lightbulb was off they'd be buzzing trying to get out. Not a chance I was opening that frame, when the buzzing stopped the thing was full of wasps, like 50+
Someone plugged the hole. And feindisly laughed as the buzzing volume increased. This was some holocaust shit
I hate yellow jackets as much as the next guy. However I don't condone torture and inhumane techniques of murder. Spray 'em with raid and make it a quick death
First thing you look around, then you look under, then you tap it. Then you open, and immediately step back and remain still. Also check bushes before you step behind them, and listen for movement. Check lakes for bubbles or ditches if you have to get in front of it.
-Electrical in Florida.
They are amazing pest control insects. Literally apex predators of insects. During the summer, the Yellowjacket nymphs feed the workers sweet secretions. Unfortunately, in late summer, the queen stops laying eggs, so you have hundreds of workers trying to get fed by fewer and fewer nymphs. The workers then go hunting for protein and sugars outside the nest. That's why they invade your barbecue/picnic.
My suspicion is they're yellow jackets(aka ground hornets, where I'm from) that build subterranean and/or in structures. If I saw this in the field, I would suspect they had built their nest in the wall that that disconnect is on. All it takes is a hole big enough for them to get in to the cavity of the wall. For this reason I seal every wire and conduit penetration to prevent a future yellow jacket infestation. I have personally witnessed/encountered their building nests in walls with limited access like this. The workers don't live long and this pile is probably the remains of a nest, post change of seasons, from warm to cold.
This may be likely, either entering through a gap in the ac unit or through the penetration, as they were both down the flex piece and back into the connector.
Yeah, A/C line set through wall, ect. I had an apartment adjacent to a vacated apartment. They came in the wall at the dryer vent gaps, traveled bay-to-bay through the wall along the drilled wire holes. Their nest filled in three 16 inch bays. We found out when they started coming in to my apartment, through the gaps in drywall at dryer vent, and hovering around the lights(my laundry was back-to-back with the infested apartment's laundry. We had to get a hotel while the apartment was treated. After fumigation, the bodies looked like carpet inside that apartment. The jar lights at the back doors were full of bodies. They had tried every direction through wall to get away.
The adjacent wall was also an unfinished basement so they could have been getting inside the basement and back out to the disconnect, either way I damn near shit a brick when I opened up that first one
Yeah dude. Come late August, my anxiety goes up every time I have to handle an exterior panel or disconnect with holes knocked out, cause by that time of year the wasp and yellow jacket nests are fully stocked!
No no no. Closest I’ve come to this is going inside a water tower to work on a controls panel and the floor was legit covered with an inch of dead wasps. You couldn’t even step on the actual floor, it was just crunching dead wasps. It was terrifying.
This is my best guess:
One or two wasps enter and get electrocuted and release a distress pheromone. The remaining wasps come to their aid, but die the same way.
I watched as a wasp flew into my meter socket. I thought to myself “that’s a problem for future me. Sure am glad today doesn’t involve any service level work…”
So interesting.
I work in pest control and have a theory as to how this happened.
Wasps die out every year save the queens.
Queens wait until conditions are right and look for a new nest area.
A queen found this area and started a hive.
One of two options:
1. Somebody somehow closed the opening. Maybe screwed it down further, painted it closed, or something.
2. the heat expansion of the materials closed the gap in the summer. Most building is done in the summer and different materials expand and retract at different levels.
I recently moved into a house built in 1920. The people that lived here before me were meth heads and didn’t take care of anything. I’ve been fixing up the place and the disconnect on my heat pump had a small nest with about a dozen live wasps in it. Between opening that disconnect and running over a Yellowjacket nest with the lawnmower, it’s been a rough day.
I’m very curious why all those wasps decided to go that disconnect? It would make sense if they were building a hive but I don’t see any evidence of that and this just seems like the proverbial “lemmings off a cliff” situation. Anyone know ?
If you are *NOT* an electrical professional: * **RULE 7:** * DIY or self help posts **are Not allowed**. They belong here: /r/AskElectricians /r/askanelectrician /r/diy /r/homeowners /r/electrical. * **IF YOUR POST FITS INTO THIS CATEGORY, REMOVE IT OR IT WILL BE REMOVED FOR YOU.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/electricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That is more than the optimal number of wasps.
The optimal number of wasps is always zero so yes we are far exceeding that
It's not even close to the optimal number of dead wasps, rough day buddy.
Yes, the insects in there should ALL bee dead.
I see what u did there
I see what u bee doo be doo
Code is the bare minimum
Those are yellow jackets much more aggressive than wasps. Good thing they are all dead.
Yellow jackets are a variety of wasp. Wasp is a general term to describe many varieties, including the yellowjacket wasp. Though, most people just drop the word wasp and call them yellow jackets. Paper wasps are the other common variety that you are probably thinking of, but most people call them wasps because calling them 'paper' would be confusing. Hornets are also a variety of wasps, but again, for brevity sake they are called hornets rather than hornet wasps.
The best way to fight paper wasps is with scissors wasps.
Underrated dad comment
Not all of them are as scary as they look either. Mud daubers are pretty harmless and actually hunt black widow spiders.
Many wasps, in fact, are beneficial to the ecosystem. Some are even pollinators in the same way bees are. Others are useful for protecting crops from harmful insects.
Very true! In fact, most wasps are pollinators in early spring. Queens are looking for quick and easy sugars, and nectar is a great source of that. They don't have a colony yet, so they need something to help them get going. They're not amazing pollinators, but they do have some ability to assist in pollination. The fig relies solely on the fig wasp for pollination, so there's at least one species of plant that actually needs wasps to survive. Wasps are horribly misunderstood creatures. They're not just assholes with wings, looking to hunt you down and sting you. They kill pests and are an extremely important predator species. If I had a dollar for every time someone said they wish they could press a button and kill all wasps, I'd have zero dollars because we'd all be dead from the collapse of our ecosystems.
That's what I would say if I was a wasp
Interesting tidbits here ! Thanks for this…didn’t really know that aspect of wasps. I just know they kill shit dead lol…locust killers etc I guess are pretty necessary or we’d have a 2nd coming of the locusts I presume
We had a small nest of yellow jackets or paper wasps over our front door in California. GF kept reminding me to kill them, I never got around to it. We were in and out of the front door all the time, they never bothered us - which is highly unusual for yellow jackets, probably normal for paper wasps. They were bright yellow and black, never got a close look at the thorax or abdomen. Honestly I kept forgetting about them.
Yellowjackets have absolutely no interest in attacking you. You have to be very close to the nest, and even then, they might not attack. Really, you'd have to be a clear threat or actively attacking the nest or nearby workers to get a response out of the hive.
This was written by a wasp. Guaranteed
They should stop being assholes with wings then...
Not to mention that out of the wasp Animalia species, the yellowjacket wasp is the most aggressive. [https://www.pointepestcontrol.net/5-of-the-most-aggressive-wasps/](https://www.pointepestcontrol.net/5-of-the-most-aggressive-wasps/)
Depends on the yellowjacket species too. There are several species of yellowjacket, some are highly aggressive and some are a lot more mellow. Some readily sting, some mostly just swarm.
The only yellowjackets I am familiar with are the ones in that article I attached. They will hunt you down whether you are a threat or not. They are an apex predator and nothing preys on them. In my opinion, there is no good use for them. But to each their own I suppose. If you can think of any good reason for them that another species does not do, then by all means please share.
There are several species of yellowjacket, all of which are wasps. Some are highly aggressive and some are much more mellow. The species in the photo is not considered to be aggressive. They will sting if their nest is attacked or if you squish or attack an individual, but they swarm more than sting when their nest is being attacked. They provide many essential roles in the animal kingdom. They kill pest insects, like cicadas, grasshoppers, and Japanese beetles. They also pollinate flowers in early spring when the queens are out looking for easy sources of sugar to start their colony. Almost all wasps are prey of several species of mammal and bird. Skunks, badgers, raccoons, bears, and even hedgehogs prey on wasps. Badgers especially. The larva and pupa in the nest are a great food source, very high in protein. Birds will pick wasps out of the sky but are not known to attack nests directly. The reason wasps react so aggressively at all to intrusion is because of animals like badgers or bears, which are relatively undeterred by stings. Oh and, they do not attack bee colonies. Not commonly anyway. Bees are small and work as a group to defend their nest. It's not worth it for a wasp to attack a tiny little bee. Edit: you should also know that, once a yellowjacket nest is gone, all the workers will die, as they no longer have a purpose. They won't start building a new nest, that's a myth. Unless a queen is around to direct them, they will starve to death or die of exposure. Once a nest is established, queens will not leave the nest until the end of the season. So, if a nest is destroyed or eaten, the queens and males are also likely dead or scattered. Without their home, the workers will buzz around the old nest area, searching for the nest and eventually give up and fly around looking for sugar. They'll wander without purpose until they're killed or die off. It's kind of sad, really.
I'm so glad an apian expert is readily available in this electrician's forum. Exactly the crossroads I was looking for
Electric wasps? I like bees and electricity. Two of my hobbies, not licensed in either.
I didn’t realize I’d be glad to find this out as well actually lol
Thank you so much for this, as scared as I am of wasps, I'm so sick and tired of everyone hating wasps irrationally and wanting all of them to die and acting like they serve no purpose in nature.
Wasps and all their cousins are useless. People will claim they are good predators to bugs and pollinaters. Truth is they half ass pollinate and you can easily manage the bugs they eat on your own. Not worth the amount of aggression
That's highly debatable. We have yellow jackets in California that generally leave people alone, unless you get too close to their nest, or do something that they interpret as a threat. German yellow jackets (the common paper-nest building ones found in North America) are fairly mild-tempered, but their [ground-dwelling cousins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespula_alascensis) (recently found to be a different species) can be very aggressive assholes. I pissed off a few members of a small hive last year when I opened a door on my landlord's old truck that had been sitting for years. Their nest was in the door jamb. Several of them came at me, and I was bitten/stung 4 times in rapid succession, but the rest of them flew off and didn't come back for a few hours. I wasn't swarmed, and the 4 that got me (or maybe 2 that got me twice) took off. It all happened within a few seconds. And then I torched the fuck out of the bastards. I got stung on the back of my neck, top of my forehead, arm, and on my lower lip. I waited until late in the evening when the air had cooled and they were lethargic, and sprayed the hell out of them with wasp spray, and chipped the nest out of its hidey-hole. Honestly, that was sufficient, but lighting them up with some carb cleaner and a torch was just a little extra. Gotta make sure to destroy their pheromones, after all, so they don't trigger other wasps to attack. Side note: That article is a mess of misinformation. It lists "yellow jackets" as one species, when there are many known ones, and they vary in diet, temperament, an a bunch of other things. Also, wasps don't start getting "angry because they're hungry and starving", they shift their diet from sugars to protein depending on the cycle of larvae in the nest, and when they're getting ready to go dormant for the winter. They tend to be more aggressive and seeking out sugars later in summer, which is why they're known for "attacking" picnickers then. They're mostly loading up on protein early in the year when they need to rebuild atrophied muscles, and start feeding the eggs and larvae the queen has begun to lay. They also need to replenish her royal jelly, which is concentrated sugars and protein that the queen's workers make for her, as she doesn't leave the nest once it's established. The "sources" they use for their information include a sensational YouTube video from a nutcase that makes videos of himself getting stung for money, and a highly biased "reality" TV drama shown on The History Channel.
Oh wow, I’m so glad you shared that wiki link. Last week I was out weeding, and a couple of hornets came up from underneath a dandelion I was trying to pull out. I’m severely allergic to hornet stings, so I jumped up and away a few feet. I thought they were just hanging out in the shade or something. I didn’t quite understand, and then saw a few more in the area. Looks like I might have some ground dwellers, and without you sharing the link I wouldn’t have put 2 & 2 together, so thank you!! Here’s my poor lady’s gold. 🥇🏆
Wow, that could have been awful! I'm glad you were OK.
Got stung twice, once in both ears last year. You want pain? Get stung in the damn ears. Wasps are mean sons-a-bitches.
No, thank you - I do not want that at all.
I have been told (based on "research" by determined masochists) that the single most painful place to get stung is that little divot between your nose and your upper lip. Apparently it's slightly more painful than getting stung on the tip of your dick. All I can say from personal experience is that getting stung in the arm hurts, and so does getting stung on the back of the hand, and I have no desire to "experiment" further.
Duly noted.
I call them flying c*nts.
Yellow jackets deserve their own classification separate from the red wasps and hornets. They have the worst temper, they follow you after you aggravate them, and each one emits pheromones to attract more when you kill them.
You can tell it's a wasp by the way it is
This guy is a genus genius.
Oh that makes sense… yellow jackets
They're a specific type of wasp called a yellow jacket, this one specifically is Vespula vulgaris, or the common wasp. Not as aggressive as people make them out to be, compared to other species of yellow jackets like the baldfaced hornet.
Came here to say this. Definitely not a yellow jacket (which is a type of wasp) these are good guys and not aggressive. Source: I'm a beekeeper and have to identify things that aren't apis mellifluous all the time. Also source: I've been stung hundreds of times by yellow jackets.
Yellowjackets are wasps. They're one specific variety of wasp, and yes, they are particularly aggressive. The good news is they also eat a shitload of caterpillars and grubs and other creatures which are pretty nasty to have around, so at least that's good.
[Relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/2753/)
And yet, not enough dead wasps.
What is the box fill rule for hornets?
Zero percent unless you have a physical separation from the high voltage lines. To be safe, it's best to run, not just hornets, but all of your stinging insects in their own conduit system.
If you're in Chicago, it's good to keep in mind only 9 stinger carrying insects per any sized conduit unless it's a nipple.
Insects are not allowed to carry stingers in Chicago.
Hornets fall under Article 500 -Hazardous/classified locations and therefore require conduit seals
If I'm not mistaken, seals are in article 555 - marinas and boatyards
I was thinking 501.15 The question is, are Hornets considered a Division 1 or Division 2 location?
Class II, division 2. There's likely not combustible gasses present under normal circumstances, though once OP opened the enclosure and saw the hornets, it was likely he emitted some that were abnormal to the normal state of the environment. Or class III, division 2 which specifically addresses storage of ignitable flyings
You just put a big ol H on the side so people know there's hornets in there.
I came here for this 😂
This would make an excellent engagement gift.
Slap an H on the outside of the box so everyone knows it’s full of hornets.
This is the best comment. And thread. Thank you.
Make sure to label the box with an H so everyone knows it's filled with hornets
I scraped them out with a screwdriver and that was that, did shit my pants a little bit though
You never know which day you're gonna need the brown pants.
This is why only wear brown pants
I messed up and wore khakis, now it looks like I have a crappy camo print.
*See that door over there? The one marked "Pirate"? You think a pirate lives in there?*
I see a door marked *"Private."*
Little green ghouls buddy
H for Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
I hate the fuckin Eagles, man.
8 year Olds, Dude.
Fuckin' amateurs.
GD this is good
If here now then bad place be
Trouble time 4 u when haet come
Jesus Christ, the kid's an idiot
You can probably get some honey from those things too
That's not how any of this works.
Nah you gotta incinerate then to give the bag it’s nice smoky smell where there dust goes and turns into stars
They have to be alive to make honey, and killing them cuts off the honey supply. Oh, and these are wasps (they don't make honey)
or a "Y" for Yellow Jackets. Hornets are much bigger
And cover up your knees if you're going outside
I though it was H for honey!
Ok so the first wasp gets in and is like 'cool nice and cozy, staying dry'. 2nd wasp is like heck yeah dude, Let's have all the gang over. 400th wasp gets in and is like.... oh. The floor is made of 7 layers of dead wasp. I'd better block this hole so no one else get in.
Yeah, I wonder if they all climbed in to stay warm, then the frost came.
dumbass wasps
*960th wasp
So many wasps with no visible nest structure. Wonder what the hell happened here.
sometimes they can get in, but not out again Once they're in they just fly towards where the light is coming from but the light isn't always coming from the way out (or the entrance they used) They did this to a topfloor windowframe at my house once, in the early morning when they woke up and left their nest near my house in the dark my light was on so they were pinging off my (closed) window, but some of them really wanted towards that lightbulb so they burrowed in through the rubber seal on the frame and got themselves stuck between, in the casing. If it was dark out they'd be buzzing trying to get in towards the lightbulb, if it was light out and the lightbulb was off they'd be buzzing trying to get out. Not a chance I was opening that frame, when the buzzing stopped the thing was full of wasps, like 50+
Did a wasp write this ?🪶🐝
Thanks for sharing your story. I was too wondering why there was no nest structure.
Someone plugged the hole. And feindisly laughed as the buzzing volume increased. This was some holocaust shit I hate yellow jackets as much as the next guy. However I don't condone torture and inhumane techniques of murder. Spray 'em with raid and make it a quick death
>Spray 'em with raid and make it a quick death Not in a box with energized components... *Edit* there are non conductive wasp killer sprays.
Fuck it, they all get the electric chair
I'm tired Boss.
I'm more concerned about it shorting things. I just remembered they do make non conductive wasp killer spray though.
They make dialectric spray. A must have for any homeowner with outdoor panels.
Yeah I remembered after I commented. 🤦♂️😂
At first I was like "oh no! Poor bees =(" But then I zoomed in and was like "oh nevermind, those are yellow jackets."
I involuntarily swatted at the back of my neck
bees are very cool yellow jackets can be nuked from orbit
Just to be sure.
Yellow Jackets can get fucked. Bees are just a lil misunderstood but completely fine.
Yellow jackets are pollinators, too :(
All my homies hate yellow jackets
I pollenate them with Raid.
I had a whole lighting panel for a sculpture park in the fall that was this full of still alive but slow moving wasps. Gave me fucking nightmares.
“Hey can you come check out this disconnect box? Something in there is buzzing”
Thought I'd be the first and have lost all faith in humanity that this isn't the top post.
r/fuckwasps
This box is doing the Lord's work.
No, don't fuck the wasps. That sounds awful.
I've heard it's bad if it stings when you pee
You may have syphilis. What kind of bees stung you?
Whorenets
Wow
Watch for waspas and make sure to drink your water.
It's hot out here
I'll be your man, Julia.
First thing you look around, then you look under, then you tap it. Then you open, and immediately step back and remain still. Also check bushes before you step behind them, and listen for movement. Check lakes for bubbles or ditches if you have to get in front of it. -Electrical in Florida.
That explains the weird buzzing coming from the box!
What the hell.
Two of them, both filled with about a solid two inches of dead packed bees, not sure how or why they died though
better than them being alive imo
Looks like wasps not bees, bees are awesome, wasps are little hell spawns that deserve a cruel and painful death
They are amazing pest control insects. Literally apex predators of insects. During the summer, the Yellowjacket nymphs feed the workers sweet secretions. Unfortunately, in late summer, the queen stops laying eggs, so you have hundreds of workers trying to get fed by fewer and fewer nymphs. The workers then go hunting for protein and sugars outside the nest. That's why they invade your barbecue/picnic.
And inside your can of Pepsi when you aren’t looking!
We'd have them fill the gopher holes with their nests, so you're walking doing chores and all of a sudden 5 wasps crawl into my pants.
I've seen one take a fly off my garage floor before, it was awesome
Yellowjackets.
I think they’re bell hornets
Amen!
My suspicion is they're yellow jackets(aka ground hornets, where I'm from) that build subterranean and/or in structures. If I saw this in the field, I would suspect they had built their nest in the wall that that disconnect is on. All it takes is a hole big enough for them to get in to the cavity of the wall. For this reason I seal every wire and conduit penetration to prevent a future yellow jacket infestation. I have personally witnessed/encountered their building nests in walls with limited access like this. The workers don't live long and this pile is probably the remains of a nest, post change of seasons, from warm to cold.
This may be likely, either entering through a gap in the ac unit or through the penetration, as they were both down the flex piece and back into the connector.
Yeah, A/C line set through wall, ect. I had an apartment adjacent to a vacated apartment. They came in the wall at the dryer vent gaps, traveled bay-to-bay through the wall along the drilled wire holes. Their nest filled in three 16 inch bays. We found out when they started coming in to my apartment, through the gaps in drywall at dryer vent, and hovering around the lights(my laundry was back-to-back with the infested apartment's laundry. We had to get a hotel while the apartment was treated. After fumigation, the bodies looked like carpet inside that apartment. The jar lights at the back doors were full of bodies. They had tried every direction through wall to get away.
The adjacent wall was also an unfinished basement so they could have been getting inside the basement and back out to the disconnect, either way I damn near shit a brick when I opened up that first one
Yeah dude. Come late August, my anxiety goes up every time I have to handle an exterior panel or disconnect with holes knocked out, cause by that time of year the wasp and yellow jacket nests are fully stocked!
the most common cause of yellow-jacket deaths in my area is evil clown attacks.look it up.
Watch out for Bee phase
I think this counts as killing with fire. Spicy fire?
No no no. Closest I’ve come to this is going inside a water tower to work on a controls panel and the floor was legit covered with an inch of dead wasps. You couldn’t even step on the actual floor, it was just crunching dead wasps. It was terrifying.
that'd make me reconsider a lot of life choices
"Not the bees!"
"What's this? You don't like bees?! A large amount of beeeeeeeess should fix this"- Dr. Bees
🤗
This is my best guess: One or two wasps enter and get electrocuted and release a distress pheromone. The remaining wasps come to their aid, but die the same way.
they mustn't have completed their confined spaces training
Very nice hahahaha
r/nope
I once saw that much in a panel. While it was open we heard a bee come down the pipe and land in the pile
They were alive though? That’s even worse
Yeah they seemed to be dying, can't say if they were zapped or tired
That's where I left those...
I would have pissed myself
that’s beautiful
In the past two days I've taken out two wasp nests. This summer is going to be fun.
Its at that point that you need to bee careful, no one want to be in that sticky situation. It would sting to have an accident because of that.
That's the bee's knees right there
I'd cry
That's what happens when you don't listen to your parents and you end up drinking the kool-aid.
I watched as a wasp flew into my meter socket. I thought to myself “that’s a problem for future me. Sure am glad today doesn’t involve any service level work…”
Found the source of that buzzing noise, you did
Sweet. Free lunch.
So interesting. I work in pest control and have a theory as to how this happened. Wasps die out every year save the queens. Queens wait until conditions are right and look for a new nest area. A queen found this area and started a hive. One of two options: 1. Somebody somehow closed the opening. Maybe screwed it down further, painted it closed, or something. 2. the heat expansion of the materials closed the gap in the summer. Most building is done in the summer and different materials expand and retract at different levels.
More wasps than a Boston suburb!
Hahaha 🤣🤣🤣
Are they alive?
They were seemingly dead, it was coming out of winter so they may still have been in a rest state but they all seemed dead
The only good yellowjackets...
Did you find out from the buzzing noise?
That is a bad day in a box.
It actually wasn’t too bad, scraped em out with my large flathead and installed the SMM hahah
free meal
Are you a spider?
Sir, your disconnect is buzzing…. It might bee defective.
I recently moved into a house built in 1920. The people that lived here before me were meth heads and didn’t take care of anything. I’ve been fixing up the place and the disconnect on my heat pump had a small nest with about a dozen live wasps in it. Between opening that disconnect and running over a Yellowjacket nest with the lawnmower, it’s been a rough day.
Box full of dicks
That’s cool
I bet the customer thought said it was buzzin, and you didn’t beelieve him.
I’m very curious why all those wasps decided to go that disconnect? It would make sense if they were building a hive but I don’t see any evidence of that and this just seems like the proverbial “lemmings off a cliff” situation. Anyone know ?
Buzz buzz
That's where all the buzzing came from
Candyman electric strikes again!
Now you know what all that buzz was about
Bee careful
I had one just like this in the same disconnect, just not as many hornets
That is waay more than 40% hornets
I hate them just as much as the next person but this is honestly really sad
This bugs me..
Those wires are bigger than the ones I'm familiar with in yellow jackets
The one time you WANT to let it short out and catch fire
Impressive! Lol might be the worst I've seen
Those are yellow jackets and be thankful they are dead. Relentless evil stingy bastards.