Summer Thoughts Let's Hear Your Wasp/yellowjacket Horror Story

Just a Roofer

I remember as a kid stepping on a yellow jacket ground nest in the golf course woods getting about 35-40 stings which ever since has made me very aware of my surroundings as a roofer.

Practically every job i can find a nest on or in the house somewhere. At least when i bid the job i can take notes as to where they are & spray em before the job begins if needed. The surprise ones suck like ripping off a sheet of plywood with a huge nest underneath on a 10/12 or something, where you gonna go?

Had a buddy on a 40 ft ladder get attacked while working on dormer flashing near the eave getting stung in the face as he's trying to get down. Fun times!

I'm sure some of you out there have some good ones!

silvertree

OK, I'm replacing clay tiles on a roof. I'm wearing Vans and carefully walking between the tiles looking for cracked or chipped tiles. I pull up a tile and there they are "Yellow Jackets". They look pissed and take to wing, I scramble up the roof and get to the ridge and realize I went in the wrong direction. Back down I go getting stung in the process. I keep my cool and don't swat at them until I'm on the ground. By then I was what would would call "A little bumpy looking".

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Bodger

Last summer I was standing by whilst the insulation crew pumped Icynene into a curtain wall stud bay. The bees that had been using that bay as a hive took exception to the assault and reacted in force.
Four guys and myself scrambled down a half-finished set of stairs laughing like hell.
Had to call Bee Safe bee removal service. They nuked them.

kbsparky

Ever wonder how many of them buggers are in one nest?

My kids found a nest in our yard one fall, and I decided to find out.

Took the shop-vac and set up a long hose, with the end placed on the ground next to the next exit hole. Left it running all day, sucking up anything that exited, or tried to enter.

When there appeared to be no more activity, we shut off the vacuum, sprayed some chlorinated solvent into the hose while the machine slowed down, plugged the hose with a rag, then left the unit set out in the hot sunlight for an hour or so.

Opened it up, and then started counting the carcasses.

We counted out 1000 of the buggers, and the pile left to count was more than twice as large as the pile of 1000.

So we had more than 3000 sitting out there on the table, all from the one nest.

I had figured a few hundred, but thousands???

Wolfgang

Usually I try to do a walk around and spray first. The times I am up on a ladder and I get one showing some interest I give up and let it do its thing. Seen too many guys panicking to get off the ladder and get hurt...me included!

Tom Struble

if i find them i stop working that section and killem in the morning when there slower

threaderman

This is more funny than bad but a few years ago I was tuning up one of my vehicles ,had the hood open and half my body in the engine area,when all of a sudden I felt like I was stabbed in the lower back(butt) ,twice.I reeled around to see a few red wasps lazily flying around.I got stung twice near my plumbers crack.....you wouldn't think that area was so sensitive,I did the wasp dance for a few minutes!

Another time I was cutting my lawn and barely tapped a street sign in the easement and man,a bunch of wasps came out.Of course like a fool I'm throwing punches at these things and few that got under the radar got me.

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Just a Roofer

Funny stuff (in some ways) !

I was bidding a job & the home owner & i are in his attic inspecting his plywood, semi dark except the access hole & a flash light. Me & the guy are walking ceiling joists & the wife is poking her head through from the ladder when she says to hubby, honey you have a big black hornet on you.

Sure enough yeah he does & swats the thing, now the creature is pissed & you start hearing more things flying around when i couldn't help but saying i'm getting the F outta here both of us trying to quickly straddle joist without falling through. (Not professional on my end but couldn't help it)! Never saw what the nest was but had a feeling it was one of those big hives the black & white hornets build.

Bodger

Off topic, but still critter related: I came damn near nose to nose with a big momma Possum in a crawlspace under a house one morning.
I dirt-swam out from under there double quick!

Just a Roofer

Yea, there is nothing like having a surprise squirrel jump out at you as your inspecting rotted fascia with knaw marks. Racoons are always fun too as they don't seemed to be scared of anything.