Hello,

New to this forum and i have a question.

I live in southern NY and many years ago gave my dad several potted plants, I thought he might take an interest. He did not and so several years ago he gave them back to me and I started doing some research and repotted them with something called Al's mixture, basically a blend of pine bark, turface (clay granules) GraniGrit and a bit of lime. It's a fast draining  mixture, just about impossible to over water.

I think one plant is Brown Turkey another may be Petit negri and the third is a luscious  all green fig.

I keep them in tubs on the driveway for the retained heat and they ae doing quite well this year.

Saturday I was working in the driveway and kept getting attacked by some aggressive yellow jackets. I couldn't find a nest, they seemed to be independent agents. Got stung once. I finally traced them back to landing in my trees. They are not boring into the fruit yet but I have had this happen i the past and would like to know if there's anyway to prevent this happening.

The picture below is from last year, this year they are even doing better. I took off any leftover fruits from last year, have been pinching off and they have more fruits and are ahead of schedule. Last year many did not ripen.


thanks,

 Rob

Rob...

Either stay away from the hornets, or get yourself some hornet/wasp traps.  Usually a blown glass bottle that has a hole in the bottom.  The wasps fly in and then can't find the way out and drown in sweet-smelling water that used to attract them

Next time, run faster.  : ))))

Frank

If they have been attacking you, the nest should be right in that area. Look around one more time. Put some bait for them and observe what direction they fly home.

Rob..   Yellow Jackets have nest in the ground. They are aggressive. In Fall , when sweeter foods not available, they attack and eat caterpillars,etc. Hang around your picnic garbage can.
     Paper wasps have the cellular paper nests under your eaves, etc. Yes, the sting, but not like Yellow Jackets.
     Bald-faced Hornets live in the football looking paper nests in trees. HA! They hunt and kill Yellow Jackets in the Fall. Try not to aggravate this Hornet !!
    I guess the Wasp traps , like mentioned previously, may help.
Destruction of nests is best bet!     Good Luck !!     Fredfig

Yellow jackets make their nest underground, usually taking over an old chipmunk or mouse hole.  I get stung every year during August, when they become very defensive and have a large hive to protect.  I take care of it by buying a can of wasp killer and spraying the nest after dark, when they're all done flying, and inside the nest.

Hornets, build round paper nests about six inches in diameter.  I kill them the same way.

Watch around for them entering or leaving their nest, then stay far away until you're ready to do battle.  They could be nesting inside one of your pots.

Paper (black) wasps I have no problem with, as they're not as aggressive and in much smaller numbers.

Yellow jackets make their nest underground, usually taking over an old chipmunk or mouse hole.  I get stung every year during August, when they become very defensive and have a large hive to protect.  I take care of it by buying a can of wasp killer and spraying the nest after dark, when they're all done flying, and inside the nest.

Hornets, build round paper nests about six inches in diameter.  I kill them the same way.

Watch around for them entering or leaving their nest, then stay far away until you're ready to do battle.  They could be nesting inside one of your pots.

Paper (black) wasps I have no problem with, as they're not as aggressive and in much smaller numbers.

found wasp/hornet nest, don't know which, right next to my 1 gal containers. went to home depot, got some wasp/hornet killer, move all my trees away from the area and killed 'em all. got stung by few of them once and it wasn't fun.

They return to their nest near dusk, so you might see more of them at that time as they "come together", and that might help you locate their underground nest.

I have found several paper nests, under eaves and especially inside the rails of the boat trailers in the driveway. I have gotten all those. Last year i was mowing my lawn and ran over a ground nest, got hit a few times by those. Read that the best thing was to cover the hole with a tub, they can't fly out, they overheat and die. That worked well. I think these are some stragglers from destroyed nests, I'm going to try the traps mentioned, thanks.

Frank, I'm in northern Westchester, South Salem


thanks,

 Rob

Howdy neighbor!

F