Beware the insects

[jayco]

It was 60 degrees fareinhiedt this evening;a perfect time to catch up on some small forge work.........that is, until I heard the buzzing.
Turns out the bees are in a crack in the large stump right that holds my post vise.........right next to the forge!

Since the weather was cool, and they were flying slow, I managed to knock down 5 with my cap.
I won this skirmish, but the war is not over yet........

This may be a long summer.........and a long thread!
James

[Frosty]

The electric fly swatters are a lot of fun if you're going with manual extermination anyway.

If on the other hand you just want to be rid of them a little 1/4C of gasoline poured in the crack will finish them in short order and not leave neurotoxins laying about.

WD40 is good for attacking the nest while they're warm enough to fly.

I use a little gas on the ground nesting yellowjackets around here and WD40 on the paper nesting variety. I've never been stung doing it either, gas or WD knocks them right down and they don't get up.

DON'T light the gas! It not only tends to light the surrounding on fire it doesn't kill the bugs, the natural draft draws the gas fumes up and away from the nest.

You probably don't want to do it while you're forging either but . . . THAT'S a judgement call.

Frosty

[jayco]

Carburator cleaner and brake cleaner also work..........Just spray it on 'em..........and no, I don't light it.

A few years back we had yellow jackets in a knot hole in a wooden barn post.
I used a squirt can to put a little gasoline in the hole.
The guy working with me wanted to light it.
I told him it was a bad idea and finally convinced him that we could have burned the barn down doing that.

[brant]

Take deodorant with you when you go to fight the bees. If you get stung that will remove the pain faster than anything I have ever seen. Was up to Alexander Bay at Bolt Castle. When my wife’s friend’s boy was picking thru the ruble and ground bee got him 10 or 12 times. A nurse from Candia had my wife put deodorant on the sting and 10 minutes later you would never had know he had been stung.

[Glenn]

Brant
got to the top of the forum page and click user profile
click edit your details
enter your location and save.

We would like to know where in the world you are located.

[Glenn]

How many times do you reach out for a door handle, like you have done every time you enter a building.

Yes that is a standard house brick, but what looks to be fuzz on the spider is actually baby spiders. Spiders bites can be dangerous or deadly depending on the spider.

Warning: spider photo attached.

[ThomasPowers]

I have blackwidows in my shop. Take a little more care and they don't bother me and if they are there they are there for a reason. I'd make a snake door for the local kingsnake to come in and deal with the mouse problem, save that the rattlesnakes might decide to use it too...

Life in the southwest!

[Frosty]

Glenn:

I think mother nature is trying to tell you something. Maybe your fortune lays in the direction of arachnid door hardware!

Frosty

[ThomasPowers]

Or trying to teach me to shake out my gloves and not to put my hands where I can't see them! Tightening up the bolts for the postvises on the workbench for example...

[Makoz]

All this talk of mud wasps (daubers?) and plumbing makes me think of my airforce days, training as an engine mech. As you would expect aircraft engines, especially jets, are a nest of pipes, particularly around the fuel control. It was drummed into us early on to blank or plug every pipe we undid, to keep out dust, foriegn objects and mud wasps! As a way of reinforcing that habit the instructors at trade school had a bent for inserting folded paper notes, with MUD WASP written on them, into any unplugged pipe or fitting. Then you'd proceed to reasemble the engine, and only when completed would they tell you to go back and check if such-and-such a pipe held a mud wasp...resulting in a red-faced apprentice and a cross on an assessment sheet!
They are a problem where I work now, plugging up gas burners in the Ceramics gas kiln (8 burners), if unused for some time, as well as BBQ's.

Originally Posted by jayco

All this talk of bees reminds me of something that happened when I was a kid.......
Have you ever heard that if you throw a rock into a hornet's nest it(the rock) will come back and hit you right between the eyes?
Well, I'd heard that saying.....and thought..........'well that's just silly!'
So....one day I happened onto a hornet's nest hanging on a low tree limb and decided to test the validity of the old saying.

I was probably 30 ft. from the hornet's nest........I picked up a rock.....threw it and hit the nest dead on target.

One second later.....something hit my upper lip.......and I felt severe pain.
For an instant, I thought the rock had somehow come back and hit me.
It turn out that the hornet is capable of retracing the trajectory of a thrown object back to it's source.

I guess his aim was off a little ....4 inches low........but I went to school all the next week with a swollen upper lip.
Some things you just gotta learn the hard way, I reckon.

James Flannery

Strange you should say that, I did a similar thing with a paper wasp nest on a brick wall, shooting an air rifle (BB gun). Got myself smack, plump between the eyes!

Cheers,
Makoz