maybe not...

[WVUtubaman12]

why? just... why?

[MaryAnn]

I have one just like it on my back porch, which was a lot easier to come by. Have knocked down two of them now, since the guy in back of me put in a pool. I'd much rather deal with hornets than bees, around here, since we got those ones that like to mob people and sting them to death. The hornets are kind of pretty, too, and the cat box enclosure is almost under the nest. They don't mind at all when I go change the litter box. I can see them sort of hold their "wings on the ready" ... sort of a posture change, but when I don't come up and bang on them they just let it go.

(Finally used pesticide on them and they haven't come back. I hate pesticide...)

MA

[windshieldbug]

Why would anyone want a nest of these!?

[windshieldbug]

Or a nest of these: ---
or these: ---

Now THOSE puppies really sting...

[Donn]

When I was a youthful college student, one winter I decorated my dorm room with a large hornet nest, probably bald-faced (the big black ones with white markings), from the back yard. They're reasonably attractive, but tend to gradually fall apart after a while, and also can smell rather funky. I imagine the residents perish in the warm dry indoors environment, hence the smell.

[Uncle Buck]

We're putting out three honey bee hives this coming April. My wife built two of them and restoring the third one.

They are sitting (ready) in the barn ( ' can be seen in the "life is good" thread in the background of one of the pictures). We have some big drums of old expired syrup for the bees to live off of until they make enough of their own honey. (We'll take delivery of three swarms this coming April.)

Considering what's been happening the past couple of years, that is probably an EXCELLENT idea.

[Alex C]

...
(Finally used pesticide on them and they haven't come back. I hate pesticide...)

MA

I have two alternatives.

A painter once showed me that if you splashed a paper cup of regular old paint thinner on a nest of bees/hornets, they would simply fall down dead. A large nest would require something more elaborate, I suppose.

Wait until night. About five feet from the nest, set up a tiki torch or something that keeps a flame. Whack the nest and run like heck into the dark. The bees/wasps/hornets will fly out of nest and through the flame which will singe their wings and end their flying days. You will have to figure out what to do with walking bees/wasps/hornets yourself. I just left them alone and ignored them.

There is a bit of adventure in either of these. It's much better to domesticate them like Bloke is going to do. I couldn't.

[Donn]

It's much better to domesticate them like Bloke is going to do. I couldn't.

You could, really, but first you would have to learn to recognize them in a little more detail than "bees/wasps/hornets." That's like going into the woods without understanding the difference between a bear and a deer. You're much more likely to encounter these insects, than a bear, and they're easy to recognize, so let's get to it.

The good:

Bloke's wife is going to take on the honey bee. Imported to North America from Europe, they are interested in flowers only. The strains that most of us are likely to see are very mild mannered, with the exception of the "Africanized" bees in some areas. If the Africanized bees have arrived in your town, you already know about it (I suppose that's what Mary Ann was talking about above.)



There are also a number of other kinds of bees - bumble bees, carpenter bees, mason bees. They're good guys - if you think fruit trees should produce more than lots of pretty flowers, you want bees around - and they are not out to hurt anyone.



The bad:

The bad boys that made the nest we're talking about here are hornets. They eat everything - bugs, garbage, your lunch - and they're aggressive and numerous. The smaller ones are the worst, with the characteristic weaving flight pattern and little fear of people.





The ugly? (Not really!)

Hornets are wasps, but not all wasps are hornets. This gets a little tricky, but if you pay a little attention, you'll fairly quickly see the difference between this paper wasp and the yellow jacket above.



I picked an image that may exaggerate the distinction, but really it's easier to spot them in motion. The paper wasp tends to be bigger, slower and has kind of long legs, and it flies with a fairly deliberate, graceful manner. They won't very often enter your house, and when they do, they often can see window panes and won't fly into them. They're hunting with their eyes, not their nose, and they're hunting for bugs. The paper wasps in my neighborhood found their way to my gooseberry bush this summer, and utterly eradicated a little green worm that in previous years has stripped the bush of leaves despite my feeble efforts at control.

If you don't like spiders, you might like the longer, blacker mud dauber wasp, which preys on spiders. Since the spiders are presumably eating pest insects, you might wonder if the mud daubers ought to be discouraged, but it's arguably better to keep them in some kind of balance. For the spider population in the long run, a wasp problem is a lot better than an exhausted food supply because of spider overpopulation.

But I digress. The main point here is that there are several common types of flying, stinging insects, that are really distinctly different and worth knowing about.

[Alex C]

You remind of the very short (less than a block) walk that my friend and I had to elementary school each day. The second lot from the corner (the corner where the school was located) was still vacant at that time (a woods...you know...a place for kids to find mischief). Early in our fifth grade year, we discovered a nest of paper wasps ("yellow jackets") that was about the size of a cantaloupe and nestled in a thicket down there. Each morning (on the way to school) we would whack that thing with a stick and R------U------N !!!!!!!

bloke "What a thrill it was!"

Thrills like that often end up in the nickname "Lumpy."