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Yellowjackets Are Lousy Roommates

Last weekend, our youngest had friends over, and was stung by a bee in our basement. At the time, he said it was a hornet, but I didn't investigate too thoroughly. I went into "mom-mode" and went for the go-to sting remedy in my house:  baking soda paste.

I grew up in barn-framed wooden house, and my bedroom was cohost to wasps every summer. They were a regular feature. Dad would foam the cracks each time, but the wasps were happy and cozy. I had stings pretty often, and thankfully, was no stranger to the baking soda paste.

So B got a 7 a.m. blob of baking soda on his back and resumed his regular Saturday morning activities - sleeping.

A skeleton of a house - 8" timbers form the frame of a three story house standing on a green hill. The same house (asymetrical, now with wooden siding) with insulation covering one part of the second story.

My room is the one shown here with the first panels of insulation on the wall, before the siding was installed.

Later, we investigated a bit more. It was pretty clear that yellowjackets were coming in from the back of the house, where several of our vents are clustered at the edge of the deck. A little swarm seemed to be making themselves cozy in the gap between the deck and the wall.

Time for Inspector Gadget moves. Our neighbors have the same vent setup and we have commiserated over dryer vent cleanouts and tracing phantom air outlets. A couple of text messages later, and I not only returned the mailbox paint (huzzah!) but borrowed a 35 foot cable camera.

And then we found the bees.

a large mass of yellowjackets clustered inside a silver flex tube

Our own little colony of yellow jackets.

Now, we're waging daily battles. Every day, we see fewer bees inside, but they are definitely still coming in. We're continuing to track them and hunt them down, with the goal being that we are able to confirm that there are no living colonies inside before we seal up the gaps.

Got any tips? I'm thinking we may need to give them names, but there are just too many for Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, et al. Maybe we can name them after the dalmatians. Or maybe orcs.



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Location: Ashburn, VA 20147, USA

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