Selfsufficientish.com

So I'm sitting at the sewing machine last night and a queen wasp of the Jumbo size sails right past my nose, wierd this time of year and in these temps?

Was n't a hornet was it? They fly in the dark and make a buzzing sound. A few year ago I had just got out of the shower when I heard this angry buzzing and a huge hornet came in the window and stung me on the hip and then flew out again! I never even moved it just attacked me.

Afraid to say it was caught and zapped, dont think it was big enough to be a hornet but was a bit of a shock anyhow in the house in the winter!

I remember now viewing a house for sale in winter and my ex wife suddenly screamed because a queen wasp had stung her on the foot. It had got in someway and was probably seeking out a place to build a nest.

I get about 5 or 10 in the house every winter.

I burn wood for heat.
I stack the wood outside and bring in a armload everyday.
once in a while a large solitary yellowjacket wasp is found hibernating in the bark of the firewood, usually in Green Ash. If I don't notice her before she wakes up,
my cats have some entertainment for a bit...til I kill the bugger.

Minnesota wrote:I get about 5 or 10 in the house every winter.

I burn wood for heat.
I stack the wood outside and bring in a armload everyday.
once in a while a large solitary yellowjacket wasp is found hibernating in the bark of the firewood, usually in Green Ash. If I don't notice her before she wakes up,
my cats have some entertainment for a bit...til I kill the bugger.

Living in the USA i suppose an old wasp is way down the worry list when you think of the other fellas you could have coming in the house from black widow spiders to grizzlies!

Minnesota wrote:I get about 5 or 10 in the house every winter.

I burn wood for heat.
I stack the wood outside and bring in a armload everyday.
once in a while a large solitary yellowjacket wasp is found hibernating in the bark of the firewood, usually in Green Ash. If I don't notice her before she wakes up,
my cats have some entertainment for a bit...til I kill the bugger.

Ah ha that could be an explanation, I had brought in some wood earlier, dont know why I didnt think of it!

A friend of mine lived in Kenya and came into her kitchen to find a young lion sniffing at the bin I asked what did she do and she said 'Do? Why I just shooed it out to join the others!' The 'others' were a pride of lions who wandered onto her farm once a day to drink from her sunken water tank. Suddenly wasps seem ok-ish.

I have become less homicidal when it comes to wasps since I found one dimembering a cabage catterpilla (one of the bright yolks) and fly away with the bits.#

I am sure I have seen wasp nesting boxes

bill1953 wrote:A friend of mine lived in Kenya and came into her kitchen to find a young lion sniffing at the bin I asked what did she do and she said 'Do? Why I just shooed it out to join the others!' The 'others' were a pride of lions who wandered onto her farm once a day to drink from her sunken water tank. Suddenly wasps seem ok-ish.

Nod nod, yep gotta agree with that one!!

She once saw her washing line complete with all her smalls disappearing into the bush on the horns of a buffalo. She made a good decision in not trying to rescue them at the time. We think we have problems....................

The Queen wasps come into my house to hibernate every winter. Often if I get the fire going too high or put the CH on they will come out of hibernation

If I see a Queen wasp in the spring I let them be, unless they are building right near or in part of the house, otherwise wasps are very good for the garden.

The young must be fed on protein so the workers take many insects until the young queens for the year are hatched, then the workers with nothing more to do till they die will just take sugary stuff, so I put out the lemonade bottles baited with sweet water to remove as many as possible so they don't take the ripening fruit.

Yeh......I had an outdoor vine full of ripening green grapes until the out of work wasps got stuck in! When I first saw the damage one evening I thought birds were responsible because of the amount of grapes eaten,then the next sunny day I witnessed scores of boozed up redundant wasps chomping the grapes to pieces. Not a bunch was left untouched.

@darkbrowneggs
Hey,
Putting the CH on and increasing the temperature so much that queens go out of hibernation actually kills them. If they wake up too early, the wasp queens die from starvation or because of low temperatures.

This, of course, is not that bad if you want to get rid of the wasps nearby your property, it's actually the better option compared to removing/destroying a whole wasp nest.

I advise anyone who doesn't make a difference between a queen wasp and a normal wasp to read this detailed content that I wrote recently:

Link removed by Admin, please read our conditions regarding advertising http://selfsufficientish.com/forum/view ... 17&t=21812

Best,
Matteo