Ridgeway Forge Studio Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 It is the time of the year in Maryland where the wood bees and mosquitos come out and love to harass innocent blacksmiths- but I have a solution! go to the store, buy a bag of espresso ground coffee, add some to a dish (it will get very stained, so a metal dish or ceramic dish you don’t care about) and light it on fire like incense. the smell is bearable, but bugs hate it. It can clear out a 20x20 shop easy, and it burns steadily depending on how much you have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 Does it work on yellow jackets? I'm allergic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridgeway Forge Studio Posted April 19 Author Share Posted April 19 18 minutes ago, Scott NC said: Does it work on yellow jackets? I'm allergic. I have a suspicion that the caffeine will only make them sentient.... Have you tried an atom bomb or perhaps death laser? In all seriousness, I have never tried, because yellow jackets are God's curse for man's hubris. I hate them so much. They nest in our ground next to the septic tank and cause me royal grief when I try to weedwhack. Perhaps someone with a entomological bent will try it and get back to us? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 Yellow jackets are a bane and a sting can put you on your butt sensitive or not. We had a number of nests around here but one day while clearing some ground near the house I found myself in a swirling mass of angry yellow jackets holding a running chainsaw. The smoke pushed them back a ways and they didn't come back but I was still in the swirl. While looking for a clearish direction to take out I noticed the ground nest maybe two steps back. I was less than 6' from a nest I'd stomped on with a tree and they were really angry. I'd never been stung by a wasp but "knew" that 25 or so can kill and I was looking at a couple hundred. Smoke from the saw was just barely keeping them off me but I was screwed. Then I had a brainstorm, took the bottle of mix gas out of my shoulder tool bag and squirted maybe 1/4c on the nest opening. They stopped coming out and any that landed near the nest went all quivery and died. I knew of a couple more nests and tried a squirt of gas on them and it worked WAY better than wasp and hornet spray so that's how I've dealt with yellow jacket nests for the last 25 years. Ones that build a paper nest in a tree, eves, etc. succumb to a squirt of WD40 or another penetrating oil spray. Just get it on the nest and it dies quickly. Once again better than wasp / hornet spray. Thinking you're going to die PAINFULLY makes you creative. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 19 minutes ago, Frosty said: I found myself in a swirling mass of angry yellow jackets holding a running chainsaw Were the yellow jackets all holding the same chainsaw, or did they each have their own? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 18 minutes ago, Frosty said: put you on your butt sensitive or not Send you to meet your maker. I carry a pen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 I only had a problem with bees one year. Bought some traps that did little (caught a Lot but still was a ton of them.) My research said they tend to move on and seemed to as I didnt have an issue the next year. Anyway, an effective trap I saw afterwards had a tote of dish soap and water with a board with raw chicken stuck to it placed upside down on the tote. The water level is just an inch or so from the meat on the board. The idea is the bees/yellowjackets go for the meat but dont have the clearance to fly off of it and hit the soapy water drowning them. Funny enough I learned a trick for mice that won't hurt our feline, canine or avian predators if you have some you care about but have a mouse problem. Get cornmeal and mix it with baking soda. Mice eat it and fun fact, mice and rats can't burp or fart so they bloat up and die. Cats, dogs, and predatory birds don't have that problem so it won't affect them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 Corn meal and baking soda, I like it. I used to trap mice, voles and similar vermin in the goat barn by putting a smear of peanut butter on the inside of a plastic bucket near the top under a handy piece of plastic. The vermin would lean out off the plastic platform, it would tip and dump them into the bucket containing about 4" of soapy water. It was too deep for them to get a foot on the bottom and jump and the dish soap removed their fur's waterproofing so they drowned almost immediately. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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