Bees are bees.
A very beneficial pollen-collector insect - more fruit-setting plus sweet-honey.

Wasps are wasps.
Also a beneficial carnivorous insect - they feeds on other insects (moslty bad ones).

Both carry a weapon (the infamous sting!) they use when alarmed/threatened.
I have experienced some minor attacks form both, but I let most of them 'bee'.

Around here at night when temperatures are in the upper 60s or lower the wasps can barely move (I have paper wasps, not yellow jackets).  That's when I go out with my wasp spray and hunt them down.  I don't believe this spray is harmful to trees, I've sometimes sprayed it directly on a tree and never noticed any damage.

One bit of fun I once had at dad's place really impressed him.  He had a wasp nest on the eve of his house.  He didn't have any wasp spray but he had starting fluid (ether) in his pickup.  I got the starting fluid and a butane lighter and torched them with a 6' flame.  Dad thought I was going to burn his house down but it was all over in a second and all the wasps were crawling around on the ground without any wings.

If there's someway you can safely cover the ground to prevent their escape you maybe could leave a garden hose there running for a day or two and drown them.

I agree. Kill them only as a very last resort. I am happy yo have them around.

BEE (good) pollinators (both wild and cultivated) are in serious-peril and in short supply/demand.
Thanks to some exotic foreign parasitic 'mite SOB' that is doing them in USA ...

Had yellow jackets trying to chew their way into the attick through the underside part of the roof. Since the nest was behind the panels it was impossible to reach without taking the house apart. Exterminator came by with a powder that did not harm the house or plants. Was not expensive and it took care of things. Came same day. I would recommend this route for the piece of mind.

It could be worse. http://www.newser.com/story/193171/man-finds-giant-wasps-nest-in-bed.html

Glad it wasn't bees.. there seems to be no shortage of wasps..

You've already identified them as yellow-jackets, not honey bees, so that's good. (If they were honey bees, I'd suggest as the others have -- try to locate some local bee keepers and they'll probably want to collect and relocate the hive.)

I don't think this has been mentioned, but one reason for waiting until night is that all the wasps will have returned to the nest....so a) you'll get them all at once, and b) there won't be any stragglers to get you from behind.
For yellowjackets I've had success just blasting a good amount of that wasp/hornet killer (the kind that comes out in a powerful stream to get nests from 10-20 feet away.)  The pressure of the blast will keep them from coming out of the hole as you're spraying it.  Then quickly cover the hole with something (i.e. create a physical barrier) and that will be that.  (And like the others said, if you can do this on a cold night, they'll be less energetic...)
Jim

So, what did you do Dennis?

dennis being just a few miles south of you I have the same problem from time to time. yellow jackets suck and there is always a guard waiting at the hole to call the troops. The best thing for you to do is wait till night and poor 1/4 gallon of gas in the entrance don't lite it regardless how much you want to. they will be dead in the morning at which time you should take cuttings incase your tree don't make it.  

Usually the brown paper wasps pick out a few figs and guard them. I live at the top of a hill and wasps do what's called hill topping meaning they like to nest in places like my house so I'll always have them around. Up until this year I didn't mind but geeeezzz I have so many different species all eating figs and being territorial and trying to chase me away -- which works more often then not as I just do not want any more bald faced hornet stings!!
Anyway I even have cicada killers (huge) and --  ahhh - it just seems like everything. I usually like watching the insects and taking photos but they are way too aggressive this year. Tomorrow I'm making traps out of gallon bottles and going through my ammo stash to find some 22 shot shells. I've had enough.

Tonight I picked just over a gallon of figs and could have picked almost twice that many if it weren't for the fact half my ripe figs have holes from bugs and insects -- ants, stink bugs, etc. etc. etc.


Dennis,
Go out at night with something very flammable like gas or ether and dump it on them, light it and run. If you do it right all the fluid will burn and you will have taken care of the bees, hornets, wasps -- whatever without doing any significant damage. I've done this many times. A lot of the time you only need a shot glass or two of fluid. Too much and you'll damage the stuff you want to keep.

For some reason the nasty flying stinging things really liked the 1100 tree filbert orchard I used to have and I was constantly burning them out. They used to dig in my fruit orchard as well and a couple have done so around my figs. I had the landscape guys over to do some vine removal and they were chased off by a bald faced hornets nest in front and a ground bee nest out back. They both got starter fluid barbecues. Problem solved.

Tomorrow starts pay back time !!!

Hi mgginva,
To chase Insects and birds remove the sources of food. Did you remove all the half faced figs that remained on your trees ?
Every damaged fruit has to be removed and buried, for instance, so that there is no food stock in your orchard.
I chased my house sparrows and yellow jackets like that - they are all gone and probably eating stuff in another garden or in the wild where they belong ...
I you let remaining "food" stay, they will start to nest ... and the matter gets worse . I know, I don't have 100 trees - so it is less time consuming to do - and I keep my trees at
a managed size for the same reason . Don't let food stock build up !

With figs on, I just left the tree alone.  Harsh chemical would have probably killed the tree.  A possum came and ate all the larve.  The nest is out and pieces are scattered on the ground.  The good news is the tree is still alive.  About a 1/4 of the root ball is exposed but the wasp are gone.  I've got to dig it up this Winter or it will die.  Part of this is my fault.  Last Fall, I dumped a whole bag of coconut husk at the base of the tree to keep the roots protected like I normally do every year.  I think the nest was already there when I covered it b/c it was pretty big.  But now, it's gone and I am happy. 

I guess the possums are good for something after all!

Glad to hear the YJs are no longer a problem.  They will eat all of your fruit if you don't get rid of them. 

When you can't find the nests:
http://www.livingwithbugs.com/yellowjacket_bait.html

Good to hear they are gone.