The latest dispatch from the species turf wars here in the wilds of Marin involves a rather dramatic emergency yellow jacket nest removal: having set up shop under the dirt in the planter near the front door, hornets had been stinging Answerjack every morning as he left for his run, and then again when he came back. (Why he did not simply come and go through the back door remains a mystery).
The first line of defense was spraying the ground with some eco-friendly, very Marin product at sunset, when the nest is the least active. When Jack got stung as usual the next morning I went charging out to vanquish the critters with the completely useless spray and promptly got stung 5 times, zap zap zap zap zap, including one sting on my scalp which still hurts so much it requires concerted effort not to whine and/or cry all day.
Clearly, heavier artillery was required—removal pros, very nice young men in protective gear who came out, gassed the lot of them with some turbo-charged toxin, and extracted the nest, which was fascinating, thousands of incubating larvae and emerging imagoes in a sophisticated structure roughly the size of 2 footballs in multiple levels seperated by post supports, like a parking garage, all made from paper the little fuckers manufacture in their mouths from plant matter. Here is what I learned about yellow jackets from my new buddies, the removal guys:
- They are the crankiest and most aggressive of all stinging insects
- They can sting multiple times without dying
- They also bite
- They can bite and sting simultaneously
- They are carnivores, and carrion eaters
- They are cannibals that will eat their own kind, as well as honeybees—you know, the nice, useful bees.
- They breed constantly and do not need a queen
- They can kill you
- Their nests cost $350 to remove
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Here, too, is what I learned on my own, the hard way:
If you fish an expired nest out of the green bin to shoot a picture or two, some of the larvae will have survived the gas and still be squiggling around. One will be born. Shoot fast; they emerge with a taste for flesh, poised to sting, and mad as hornets.
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