Trophy Carpenter Bee

[fastdadio]

How I envy you and others residing in great states/areas! In New York State, most places, one might last minutes even carrying out a revolver with cylinder open and by a pencil in barrel before you'd probably get arrested!!! For bugs of most all types, those cans of Black Flag Wasp Spray are about all we may safely employ.

You could always get one of these;
https://www.pyramydair.com/product/g...n-rifle?m=1020
.22 smooth bore air gun. With the cost of primers these days, it could pay for itself in no time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeiO03hu7LM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnU-slxax1M

[wilecoyote]

a spray paint can at hand, color unimportant, can do wonders on the flying efforts of any insect. stomp next_
not funny as shooting, but not prohibited by firearm laws, here. until now, at least_

[georgerkahn]

You could always get one of these;
https://www.pyramydair.com/product/g...n-rifle?m=1020
.22 smooth bore air gun. With the cost of primers these days, it could pay for itself in no time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeiO03hu7LM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnU-slxax1M

Thanks for suggestion, but I already have several dozen air arms! The MAJOR challenge is the, pick your choice of word: ignorant or stupid -- where the great percentage of people could not distinguish the difference between an air-powered or powder-powered device. Sure -- "TOY" arms are supposed to have that ORANGE coloured band near muzzle, but that's not enough to too-often be mistaken for "the real McCoy". Further, in most municipalities, even a sling-shot is verboten; even a Red Ryder BB gun is against the law to be discharged.
SADLY -- 'though it works soooo very well -- those spray cans of Black Flag Wasp and Hornet Spray are our only (legal) choice... And... I continue to envy those who live in areas where it is OK!
geo

[murf205]

George, your only hope is that the environmentalist don't have wasp and hornet spray outlawed for some silly "green" reason. If they ever ran over a yellow jackets nest with a lawn mower, they would think a 50 BMG is entry level!

[owejia]

Murf you are suppose to stop over top of the nest and let the whirling blades slice and dice them, just don't run out of gas before you get them all.

[Thumbcocker]

Shoulder or full body mount?

[dverna]

I hope to try wasp hunting this year. We get a lot of them.

My PCP gun is very accurate (3/8" @25 yards). Will start at 25 yards and use jelly for bait.
I am too frugal to use primers to shoot bees/wasps, and too lazy to load bee buster ammo. $6/500 pellets make for a cheap "backyard safari"

[Green Frog]

How do you cook them?

Honey roasted??

[murf205]

Murf you are suppose to stop over top of the nest and let the whirling blades slice and dice them, just don't run out of gas before you get them all.

There was a time when I was a lot braver than smarter but after I went into anaphylactic shock and my BP went down to 50/30 and got a free ride in the meat wagon to the ER, I realized that I don't have guts enough to mess with yellow jackets. And that was only 2 stings!

[Winger Ed.]

This year I knocked down the few wasp nests I've found around here before they got very big.

I kinda wish I hadn't. I got one of the small quad-copter drones for Christmas and remember seeing a guy
on youtube running his up close to a wasp nest and letting them attack it.
It didn't end well for the wasps.

It looks fun, and you don't have to be quick, nimble, or even very close.

[TNsailorman]

A quad drone, another fun toy to make life miserable for things that use stingers. A few summers ago I was mowing my yard and ran over a nest of German ground wasp. I had never heard of them up to that time. Those thing put Hornets to shame. They just keep stinging, none of that sting once and go. There is a jacket that the stinger goes through so it does not loose the stinger when it stings. The jacket often does and quite a few of them were still in me when I got into the house. My wife pulled quite a few out of me with tweezers. The lawn mower blade was not eating the wasp up either. I turned loose of the mower while it was over the nest and ran for the porch thinking they would not pursue me for 75 feet or so. Fat chance, they followed me all the way onto the porch and my wife came out with a broom and was sweeping them off of me. They finally surrendered to the broom and left me, except for a few that had made it up my jeans legs. I took my shirt off on the porch to make sure none would go into the house and went in to take a shower and get the little stinger jackets pulled out of my skin. We counted something like 88 sting places on my back, legs, and chest. Funny thing was that my bare arms(short sleeve shirt) only had a couple of stings on them. The next evening just about dusk I poured the nest full of gasoline and lit it off. The next day I checked on the nest and there were a few still going into and out of the nest. I poured more gas and lit it off. The next day I checked and there were only a couple trying to get into the nest but would lite on the edge of the nest but would not go into the ground (big round tunnel hole going into the nest). I killed those few with a shovel when they lit and proceeded to dig up the nest. That thing was 4 layers deep (about 18 inches into the ground) and each layer must have been 14 to 16 inches in diameter. It was a small cavern. I talked to our local Naturalist at the state park and he said it must have been a very old nest for it to be that big. Said it probably had been there for quite some time and he wondered why it had taken them so long to finally get after me when I was mowing. He told me that those things were usually extremely aggressive. He and my doctor both said I was a very lucky man as having been stung that many time I should have went into shock. The skin on my back was flinching but the pain was the only thing on my mind right then. They started a war with me and I kill every thing that has a stinger now with the exception of honey bees. long story but it is still fresh in my mind, james

[rockrat]

I was mowing with the Bush hog, next to the road that ran in front of Grandads farm, and ran over a hornet next. Making the next pass and saw an insect cloud and figured out what had happened. Went elsewhere to mow and came back a while later. Just a few, so parked the bush hog over the nest for a few minutes then left. When I drove by later, you could see pieces of hornets everywhere and lots of other that I guess had returned to the next.
Early next morning, got out the tractor and found the entrance and just ran over it a few times with the tires. That was the end of that nest. Friend wondered why I hadn't been stung.

[Winger Ed.]

[QUOTE=TNsailorman;5710988] proceeded to dig up the nest. That thing was 4 layers deep (about 18 inches into the ground) and each layer must have been 14 to 16 inches in diameter. It was a small cavern. /QUOTE]

There's some videos on youtube with guys pouring ground nesting wasp and fire ant nests with molden Aluminum.
Then they dig them up, wash 'em off and make artwork & lamp bases out of them.

They look pretty cool....... Although it's a rather traumatic experience for the wasps & ants.

[Jtarm]

I hope to try wasp hunting this year. We get a lot of them.

My PCP gun is very accurate (3/8" @25 yards). Will start at 25 yards and use jelly for bait.
I am too frugal to use primers to shoot bees/wasps, and too lazy to load bee buster ammo. $6/500 pellets make for a cheap "backyard safari"

PCP gun?

Does that make ‘em go crazy & kill each other?

[35 Rem]

My father and I came up with a great and exciting way to battle yellow jackets. We had a kerosene powered flame thrower for burning brush piles on the farm and one day it occurred to us that it could be a great weapon if we could find a way to group the bugs close enough before unleashing it on them. Darkness was the obvious answer. So we waited until about 10:30pm and went back to where the nest was with flame thrower in hand along with a shovel. He fired up the flame and put it right over the hole while I pushed the shovel down beside where we figured the nest to extend to. When I leaned the shovel over and lifted the dirt, holy mad bee Batman!!!! Yellow Jackets were pouring out straight at us but most of them were on fire and the others decided that they wanted no part of this fight. I flipped the dirt all the way over and he roasted the whole basketball size nest. We did this to at least 3 nests and they never came back in those locations. To do this of course you are going to need a very hot and large flame. This flame thrower didn't make a long flame but it got so hot that it was very uncomfortable to use in the Summer time.

On the flip side we had some kind of small black wasp looking stinging bug a few years back that nested in the ground. I had one of those sting me on the back of my hand a couple times while mowing and it cured my arthritis in that hand for a good while.

[Skipper]

Mama Murf said I looked deranged waving a 4" 44 magnum around on our back deck(she may be on to something now that I think about it).

Shades of Elmer Keith!

[kenton]

[HWooldridge]

My father and I came up with a great and exciting way to battle yellow jackets. We had a kerosene powered flame thrower for burning brush piles on the farm and one day it occurred to us that it could be a great weapon if we could find a way to group the bugs close enough before unleashing it on them. Darkness was the obvious answer. So we waited until about 10:30pm and went back to where the nest was with flame thrower in hand along with a shovel. He fired up the flame and put it right over the hole while I pushed the shovel down beside where we figured the nest to extend to. When I leaned the shovel over and lifted the dirt, holy mad bee Batman!!!! Yellow Jackets were pouring out straight at us but most of them were on fire and the others decided that they wanted no part of this fight. I flipped the dirt all the way over and he roasted the whole basketball size nest. We did this to at least 3 nests and they never came back in those locations. To do this of course you are going to need a very hot and large flame. This flame thrower didn't make a long flame but it got so hot that it was very uncomfortable to use in the Summer time.

On the flip side we had some kind of small black wasp looking stinging bug a few years back that nested in the ground. I had one of those sting me on the back of my hand a couple times while mowing and it cured my arthritis in that hand for a good while.

Spot on with regard to darkness - most diurnal insects are blind at night.

We had a bunch of hornets build a huge nest in a stack of lumber when I was in high school. My grandfather noticed them flying in and out, so he decided to pull the pile apart and burn them with a pitch torch. 40 or 50 stings later, he quit and skedaddled for the house. My mother wanted to call an exterminator but I convinced her otherwise.

I waited until dark then parked the truck with the headlights turned on so there was no light attached to me. I made up a strong water spray with Chlorodane and Malathion insecticides then started spraying everything. I would pull off a board or two, exposing the nest, then wet it. The spray mix killed them within a minute so I would wait for no movement then keep going. Any that decided to fly went towards the headlights and nothing landed on me. Took about an hour to knock the whole thing to the ground and we estimated there were a couple thousand hornets in the nest, which extended along and between all of the boards. I learned from that experience and always kill nests after dark.

[TNsailorman]

That part about them returning to the nest after dark is spot on. That is the best time to do the little buggers in. Lot of good ideas here on how to do it and still have fun. I am listening, james

[Skipper]

I smoked my first carpenter bee yesterday afternoon with a load of grits and 1.5 grs of Bullseye. It hit the deck alive-sort of- and knowing their resiliency ans savage tenacity to life (LOL), I administered the heel stomp as a coup de grace. I'm afraid this is going to be addictive.
Mama Murf said I looked deranged waving a 4" 44 magnum around on our back deck(she may be on to something now that I think about it).

If you run out of grits, salt works pretty good.