Yellow Jackets – Identifying the Enemy

September 25th, 2008 Posted in Stinging Insects


Count to 1 . Didn’t take long; did it? Now imagine getting stung by a yellow jacket and within that amount of time all of its buddies within a 15-foot radius start heading your way to join in on the stinging frenzy. Not a pretty picture, but that’s exactly what happens. It is no wonder you are interested in how to get rid of yellow jackets!

Did you know that yellow jackets cause over 95% of the allergic insect stings in the United States? Yellow jackets, although agriculturally beneficial since they kill smaller insects, can pose a problem since they are so dangerous.

This article will introduce you to identifying yellow jackets, their nests, and their life cycle, so you can be sure that trapping, controlling and prevention methods will work.


Identifying Yellow Jackets

The term “yellow jacket” refers to several different species of wasps from the generas Vespula and Dolichovespula (family Vespidae). There are many different yellow jackets, mostly predatory, but the kind we are most concerned with are scavengers, since they are the pests that you find hiding in a soda can. Also, scavengers are more dangerous since they have larger nests than their predatory relatives—more yellow jackets available to defend a nest.

Bee or Yellow Jacket?

Many humans have something in common with scavenging yellow jackets—a sweet tooth. Bees provide people with honey, so it is important to those who have a sweet tooth to be aware of the differences between bees and yellow jackets. So, what’s the difference?

Watch the following video to find out:

Bees are furry with tan-brown coloring, while yellow jackets are smooth, shiny black and bright yellow-colored. The seasonality of their nests differ, as well. Bee colonies last more than one or more years; therefore, mature nests can be found year-round. Conversely, yellow jacket nests start new each spring, grow in the summer, and die out in the late fall or early winter. Their nests are most dangerous in the late summer or early fall when size is at a maximum.

Both bugs sting; however, yellow jackets are more dangerous. A bee has a barbed, in other words, hooked stinger that sticks in a wound along with its poison gland and some of its internal organs, which kills the bee.

A yellow jacket can sting multiple times, since it has a barbless stinger that can be easily withdrawn and used again and again. Yellow jackets are more dangerous than bees, because of their swarming behavior that is provoked either when their nest is disturbed or an individual yellow jacket stings a victim marking him/her as an “enemy of the hive” with a pheromone.

Bees do not practice this swarming behavior, excluding the Africanized bee.


Yellow Jacket Nest

It is helpful to identify a yellow jacket nest so you can be sure to avoid becoming an “enemy of the hive” yourself. A yellow jacket nest is built with fibers scraped from wood mixed with saliva in multiple tiers, similar to paper wasp nests, except that they are enveloped in paper casing in the shape of a football or soccer ball with a single entry hole; additionally, the color and texture of a yellow jacket nest is either gray and brittle or tan and fragile.

Location

Nests can be found in rodent burrows, underground (usually near the foot of trees or shrubs ), above ground, and in cavities of human-made structures. No hole is small enough for these crafty creatures; yellow jackets moisten and dig out additional space if a hole is not large enough sometimes causing a wet patch that causes a hole in a wall or ceiling.

Watch the following video about why stinging insects invade the home:

Some yellow jackets, Dolichovespula arenaria and D. maculate, are aerial-nesting; these yellow jackets do not become scavengers, but are defensive when a nest is disturbed. In fact, D. arenaria sometime sting and bite simultaneously—ouch!

Aerial nests are attached to eaves and tree limbs with entrance holes at the bottom; however, an underground yellow jacket nest is more dangerous than this type, because it is harder to see.


Yellow Jacket Life Cycle

Many consider the life cycle before deciding to trap or kill yellow jackets, since colonies begin anew each spring and die out by winter, as aforementioned. This means that though the nest may be a problem now, it may not be in a year. It still could be a future threat, however, if new queens build nests on your property the following year.

A queen emerges from winter hibernation in warm weather (usually late April or early May), builds a small nest, and lays eggs in it; the eggs become white, grub-like larvae, which the queen feeds for 18-20 days.

The larvae become white pupae that change to adult-coloring as they mature.

A queen stops leaving its nest once a few workers (female offspring) are raised, usually by mid-June; worker tasks include expanding the nest, foraging for food, caring for the queen and larvae, and defending the colony.

Colonies grow throughout summer to 1500-15,000 individual yellow jackets; however, a colony in Charleston, South Carolina, was discovered in 1991 containing about 250,000 adult yellow jackets!

Numbers begin to decline after reaching maximum size, and as winter approaches, new queens and a few male drones are produced; these males die after mating with the new queens. Then, all workers abandon the nest and die, as does the original queen. Finally, the mated queens go into hibernation to survive until the following spring to start new colonies.

Want a safe, organic insecticide to get rid of yellow jackets? Try EcoSMART products to get rid of yellow jackets!







  1. 17 Comments | The First 1,000 to Comment (Starting 12/21/2009) Will Become EcoSMART Product Testers!

  2. By Nancy Jones on Oct 5, 2008

    We have a nest in the wall of our house. We had an exterminator come and spray some powder into a very small space at the top of the wall, but I can still hear buzzing in the wall from inside the house. That tells me that the nest is still active. I know that the nest will die off as it gets colder, but will we be able to seal off the hole after it gets cold? Or is the queen still inside? I didn’t want to seal up the hole so that, come spring, we find yellow jackets boring into our house to get out. Please give me some info. Thanks!

  3. By kara on Oct 5, 2008

    Unfortunately, there is no definite answer. Depending on the conditions, nests inside structures may persist as long as they are dry.

    Usually, however, yellow jackets, including the original queen leave to die. The new queens leave to over-winter in new sites to start new colonies. Nests are not used again and rapidly decompose over the winter.

  4. By Alan Lietzke, Sunnyvale Ca on Jan 6, 2009

    Today (05 Jan’09), I was stung, on my ear lobe, while pruning berries, ~2.5 feet from an in-ground yellow-jacket nest. I have been (safely) observing this nest (from ~3 feet) every weekend for several months, watching for evidence of the (predicted) winter die-off, now that our cold wet (Sunnyvale, Ca) weather has arrived. However, despite several frosts (hard enough to wilt new pummelo growth), and several drenching rains, the nest looks busier than ever, and, after today’s sting, appears to be even more aggressively defended. I want to protect unwary pedestrians on a side-walk ~3.5 feet from this nest. Can yellow-jacket nests over-winter in our mild-winter climate, or should I continue to wait?
    AFL

  5. By EcoSMART Kara on Jan 30, 2009

    Dear Alan Lietzke,

    Ouch! Yellow jackets can stay active in mild climates year-round, but in an area that gets frost, that’s pretty rare. Perhaps the location of their nest has kept them warm.

    Most likely, they will die off soon, and this is a better time to treat them than waiting for warmer weather when they will be even more aggressive and active.

    Word of warning, underground nests are very hard to treat with spray since the entrance hole may be far from the actual heart of the nest. It may be best to hire a professional who has the right equipment.

    Hope that helps!

  6. By Sean Coffey on Jun 13, 2009

    I don’t know if I was about to have a yellow jacket, or some other wasp problem or not. I awoke this morning and saw several wasps’ starting a nest on my porch. There were about 2 or 3 of them. I hate anything with stingers as they scare me to death! I immediately went to the store and bought some of the Hornet & Wasp RAID.

    The directions said to wait until the evening; however, I wanted them gone immediately because I have to walk right past the nest, and I didn’t want it to get any bigger. I aimed right at them, shot, and they fell to deck. About 2 minutes later another one of them came back, touch the small nest, and fled away.

    They were small, black, and yellow with tannish wings, but did not have a thin waist. I also found two small white blotches with a brown circle tip at the end. I would guess that is the larvae? I hit it with a broom and swept them to the ground. I also smacked down the small nest they had built. It was from the porch ceiling with. It looked like a small thin twig, but then go larger as it went down. Just like an apple when it hangs from a tree.

    I don’t know the behavior of these insects, or if I was able to kill the queen this morning. Since I have destroy this small nest, the larvae, and possibly the queen. Will they return to the spot to build again? Return because they are incredibly pissed off? Or begin building again in close proximity? Or if it was in fact yellow jackets?

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks!
    Sean

  7. By jeanne muehlbauer on Jul 9, 2009

    wasp are really pesty. We had a group of mexicans to reside our house last year. There were so many wasp they went and got so many cans of some spray to try and get rid of them. The guys were pretty upset because some of them got a pretty good sting from them.

  8. By jeanne muehlbauer on Jul 9, 2009

    This year we have had so much trouble with ants. I finally went and got a spray that is suppose to last for 6 months and it has done wonders. The ants are outside and not inside.

  9. By Ray Stancliff on Jul 22, 2009

    i live about 30 mile north of atlanta ga. i have a yellow jacket nest somewhere in a large papas grass. i see the bees enter and leave but no definite spot. i was stung while attempting to remove the grass. i have treated with wasp and hornett killer but i still see activity. should i wait till winter to remove this plant?

  10. By Linda Mire on Aug 26, 2009

    I was recently stung on the back by a yellow jacket. They are everywhere. We found a nest in the ground in the front yard but I was stung in the back yard by the pool. The next day I got stung again in the exact same place. About a week later I was stung a third time in the exact same place. It still hurts, like there is a stinger in there. Can they know where I was stung and hit the same place? Can a stinger be in there. This is really creepy.

  11. By Dan Swigert on Sep 6, 2009

    So my dogs where being stung by a group of like four yellow jackets so i let them inside and killed the ones that got in but i’m curious how ling does the pheromone that is release last (how long will they be able to identify the target due to the pheromone after the first one releases it)

  12. By David Brodeur on Sep 16, 2009

    I have a number of nests of European paper wasp around my yard. They’re patterned similar to yellow jackets, but have longer, “waspier” bodies and long legs that dangle below them when they fly. I have mostly left them alone because the colonies are small (no more than a couple dozen wasps) and not aggressively defended. I regularly pass within two feet of one nest and the wasps pay me no attention. (Try that with yellow jackets or hornets!) They also show no interest in Labor Day cookouts.

    I have gotten rid of a few nests in inappropriate locations. I killed the colonies that nested on my shed door – I was never stung, but they get a bit agitated when you move their nest. I also killed the queen that built a nest in my watering can when she returned to try it again.

    I did get yellow jackets this year, in the roof of the pump house, and paid to have them exterminated.

  13. By Theresa Johnson on Sep 24, 2009

    I have just discovered that I have a yellow jacket nest inside the wall of my home. I have tried as of yet unsuccessfully to get rid of them but now they are squeezing through the window sill corners. Do you have any suggestions to rid my home of these yellow jackets?

    Thank you,

    Theresa Johnson

  14. By Chuck Gerler on Sep 27, 2009

    I have discovered a Yellow jacket paper nest In Our laundry room about 8 ” x 6″ with about 5-7 of them always going over the nest and a few flying around. They come in from the wiring of out central air conditioner. they fly behind the electical box outside so there really isn’t a accessable hole that i can get at to spray anything. I’m worried that because our Furance is in that room they won’t leave to die come the cold IL. weather. I was thinking if putting clear pastic over the area of the nest so they won’t be flying around in the basement but I’m worried if the plastic touches the nest will they go crazy. and if the palstic works then spray thru the plastic onto the paper nest – would that do anything? Does this idea make sense or is it foolish? HELP!!

  15. By Kristine Fraser on Aug 12, 2010

    I have recently found several yellow jackets on my living room window. Everyday, I kill about 10-15 of them at different times throughout the day. I taped up the back window and the gas fireplace to see if that would stop them from coming in, but it has only slowed them down. I can’t see where they are coming in and have no idea where the hive it. I don’t hear any buzzing in the walls either. They are no where else in the house, except on the back window. They don’t fly around, just directly go to the window. I think they are coming in the fireplace, but again, I have no idea. The exhaust fans in both bathrooms were taped up and still, yellow jackets. I had a professional to the house yesterday, and he said he can’t spray unless he can see the hive or activity. We see neither. I have no idea if I am allergic, as I have never been stung, but I have tons of other allergies, so this is a huge fear to me. I am worried that they will come back again next year. When do they start to die (I live in Ontario, Canada)? It has been an extremely hot and sunny summer and they seem to be thriving. Any suggestions or help would be much appreciated.
    Thanks.

  16. By Candace on Jun 14, 2011

    This year in Northern CA it has been very wet and rather cold. Will this have a direct effect on the new population of yellow jackets. I have not treated our ranch yet this year,(June) should I treat or wait till the weather gets warmer?

  17. By sandstone on Jun 29, 2011

    Hey, can’t view the videos, listed as “private!”

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