Unconventional Wasp Nest Disposal

HEALTH WARNING, please do not try replicating the following which is very dangerous and could result in serious injury to yourself or others. This was done before the invention of health and safety. :nono:

During the 1930s and 40s my Grandfather had a novel way of getting rid of ground wasp nests which I have never heard of anyone else doing anything similar. When my Grandfather had a problem wasp nest in the ground he would sprinkle a little gun powder over the top of the wasp nest and then "carefully" toss a lighted match into the gun powder. Because the gun powder was not in an enclosed vessel there was only a sudden flash then, presumably, a few flames and enough to kill the wasps. I have not personally witnessed this procedure but my father did and so I know it worked. Apparently you needed the sudden initial flash to kill the wasps instantly or the wasps may have had their revenge. :yikes:

It is possible that my Grandfather learnt this trick in Australia where he spent a few years as a boy while his family attempted to make a living from sheep farming. I have mentioned this novel wasp disposal method to a number of people over the years but no-one has ever heard of anyone else doing anything similar. My Grandfather had access to the gun powder, I assume, because he was a shot gun and rifle owner for many years.

Doesn't sound so crazy to me, in fact using explosives to rid oneself of an insect invasion is understandable. I do something similar only with a can of starting fluid and a lighter. Makes for a makeshift flamethrower that deals instant death to all would be Kamikaze insects and their demon spawn. Works well on a bug we call a Spricket around here too. They look like a cross between a spider and cricket, nasty little ....ers. Wife won't go in the basement to do laundry when they've invaded so they ALL gotta die.

There are directional sprays available today that kill them dead without fail. You wait until evening, after dark preferably when they're all at rest and simply spray into the entrance, soaking the nest. No flames, no hazard...just dead pests.

The best pesticide I had knowledge of was Chlordane....banned in Canada decades ago and in the USA in 1988. It was amazing at killing infestations but super dangerous if misused.

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

. No flames, no hazard

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,no fun. :madsmile:

"Spricket"??? That must be a Delco thing........nothing like that up in Chester Cty!

Just add a couple of snippets from my NOT TO BE RETRIED file.
Had an army mate that hated red ants, would always do a war dance on their nest to stir them up.
This time he dug a small hole and slipped a grenade simulator into the nest........yep, we were covered in angry red ants, no fun at all.

The second time was paper wasps. Small and angry little buggers, gave the nest a squirt with flyspray......well you know the average flyspray is lucky to work on flies, let alone wasps........boy were they cranky and boy can they sting.:thdown:

Thing is Muffett those paper wasps usually have a squillion few mates with them and they attack in droves multiple stinging you whilst your legging it, I managed to get hold of some stuff from a telegraph pole mob they used to use in treating them along with the arsenic but this stuff they had was instantaneous as soon as it hit them they did not even know they were dead just curled'em up in a blink.
Lorseban worked really well but now that has been banned at least here in the West........

Having suffered the dreaded Sgt Ant attack (Red Ant):yikes: myself the swelling on top of my hand took @3 months to subside infact in Wisemans SAS survival book he warns you of them they are very aggressive and apparently can jump @6" the other ones that are bad are the green tree ants I have heard horror stories from Qld about those little suckers.
Any fire ant infestations where you are Muffett.

In my "yoot" we took care of yellow jackets (ground wasps) by pouring gasoline (later kerosene) down the hole and throwing in a match.

Bob

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Originally Posted by WarPig1976

,no fun.

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I had entertained the idea of a can of spray silicone and a lighter. The directional spray actually works better...

I've used a spray can of upholstery glue I got at a casket factory to take care of wasps. It has a wide spray pattern and instantly glues the to the nest or gums them up where they can't fly.
Afterwards I just scrape the nest off.

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Originally Posted by rum_runner

instantly glues the to the nest

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That would be good fun too...

My maternal grandfather (my house is on the west side of his farm) taught me the gasoline-down-the-hole trick for yellow jackets (ground wasps) back in the 60s.

More recently, I use RAID Wasp & Hornet spray (the directional, high-volume stuff) ... knocks them down on contact.

When I locate a nest of the little buggers, I recon during the day to check for all of the entrances ... each will need a rock, which I locate and place nearby.

After dark I quickly seal all entrances but one, nuke it heavily and drop the last rock on it.

That usually solves the problem. :)

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Originally Posted by Youngblood

More recently, I use RAID Wasp & Hornet spray (the directional, high-volume stuff) ... knocks them down on contact.

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That's the stuff I like.

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Originally Posted by Bob Womack

In my "yoot" we took care of yellow jackets (ground wasps) by pouring gasoline (later kerosene) down the hole and throwing in a match.

Bob

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That was always my recipe for revenge.

I find the tubes of powder wasp killer quite good that you squeeze and a white talcum powder like stuff comes out which you have to direct into the "front door" of the nest. The trouble is that you have to get quite close to the nest and the wasps all seem to come out of the nest to find out what the hell is going on and they aint half angry. :bash: You then see "white wasps" returning to the nest after they have calmed down a bit. I normally wear hand, head and face protection to minimise the risk of being stung when using this product.

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Originally Posted by jonnyc

"Spricket"??? That must be a Delco thing........nothing like that up in Chester Cty!

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Yup, apparently also called a Cave Cricket, yuck.....
Rhaphidophoridae - Wikipedia

Or you could just do what my dopey son and his equally dopey pal did. Find the hole where the herd of wasps were going in and out of their ground hole and then put the hose of their industrial vacuum cleaner into it - and switch it on! Within 10 minutes the inside of the vacuum was a, well..... a wasps nest jamb packed with exzceedingly angry, totally ****ed off wasps just wanting revenge. The problem was that having got the wasps, how do they get out of the situation. Easy................ They just turned the vacuum off, ran for their bikes and scarpered leaving the boys mum and dad to solve that part of the situation!

A workmate thought that a sensible way of dealing with a wasp nest was to thrust an iron stake right through the middle of the nest during his morning coffee break. Unfortunately for him he got stung a number of times and went into anaphylactic shock which required a rather urgent trip to hospital.

My wife read somewhere that a cleaning product called "Formula 409" killed instantly and on contact. The bottle offered an adjustable stream that could be narrowed down to the point where you could shoot it thirty feet. It was quite satisfying to find a wasp starting a nest and either hit him on his nest from across the yard or even zap him in-flight and watch him immediately shut down and drop. It was just like firing a machine gun with tracers: you aimed, squeezed, and walked the stream onto the target.

One day my wife came and got me and said, "The boys have found a wasp building a nest in the back yard. Would you please squirt them with the 409?" She handed me a bottle with graphics very similar to 409, clearly a generic 409 knock-off. "I said, dear, we've only tried the real stuff. We have no idea what is in this clone." She: "Oh, I'm sure it will be fine." I stepped out the door, was shown the nest and perpetrator, took a couple of shots to sight in the bottle, and then took on the issue.

On my first squeeze I was probably two inches off and walked the stream right onto target. The enraged wasp, obviously totally unaffected by the generic spray and angry at the unwelcome bath, flew directly up the stream and stung me on my trigger hand before the last drops of my squeeze fell. Ow.

Not generic.

Bob

So generics do not work for us geriatrics Bob that is a classic:rofl:
"That is the issue with tracer fire the enemy know exactly where you are and mount a determined frontal assault on your position............."

Those guys are crazy....the wasps I mean..... I moved a brush hog and there was a nest under it....hopped off the tractor and went running...I was lucky and they just stayed attacking the tractor till it ran out of gas.

I then moved my bronco over the nest...the wasps came back out and attacked the car....bouncing off the windows....you could even hear them getting chewed up in the A/C blower.

Still use the petrol down the hole method mentioned by Bob

I've been scrapping an above ground pool. Wasps LOVE making nests under the deck, always have since it's out of the sun and (was) reasonably cool thanks to the water in the pool, and this time of year undisturbed (typically open it in two weeks). I went running for cover a total of three times during the process of tearing this darn thing down from when I began percussive disassembly on a panel only to be greeted by a handful of angry stinging insects. Worst was a panel I managed to unbolt and completely remove only to find a nest underneath with several very unhappy occupants.

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Originally Posted by cherokee

Those guys are crazy....the wasps I mean..... I moved a brush hog and there was a nest under it....hopped off the tractor and went running...I was lucky and they just stayed attacking the tractor till it ran out of gas.

I then moved my bronco over the nest...the wasps came back out and attacked the car....bouncing off the windows....you could even hear them getting chewed up in the A/C blower.

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Years ago I read that there are 2 basic types of those nasty little ground-dwelling yellow jackets.

One type is laid-back, easy-going, smokes-dope, nothing-ever-bothers-it kinda crew.

The other type consists of umbrageous, psycho-killers that are UPSET by just about anything, but especially vibrations caused by things like gasoline engines.

One type lives deep in the woods and the other, around Man.

Guess which is which. :)

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

a determined frontal assault on your position

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In my experience you had better watch for additional points of egress or you might just get flanked.

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Originally Posted by cipherk98

I've been scrapping an above ground pool. Wasps LOVE making nests under the deck, always have since it's out of the sun and (was) reasonably cool thanks to the water in the pool, and this time of year undisturbed (typically open it in two weeks). I went running for cover a total of three times during the process of tearing this darn thing down from when I began percussive disassembly on a panel only to be greeted by a handful of angry stinging insects. Worst was a panel I managed to unbolt and completely remove only to find a nest underneath with several very unhappy occupants.

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Total write off...4 or 5lbs of BP should be enough. Then build an in-ground pool in the hole left over.....

I seem to have stirred up a hornets' nest with this thread. :lol:

Back in the day I worked in a TV repair shop. There was a product used to clean the old fashioned tuners. It knocked down bees as is they hit a 50 cal MG. Stuff was pretty expensive, so we didn't "walk it in" but tried for a direct impact. :yikes:

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Originally Posted by WarPig1976

Total write off...4 or 5lbs of BP should be enough. Then build an in-ground pool in the hole left over.....

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Well they did say they were considering putting a fire pit there instead...

On the matter of the stinging insecta ~ I was riding home to Bunbury from Perth @180klm's on my Z900 was still in a 70kph zone so had my visor up as it was a beautiful summers evening you know when the air is dead still and the sun has lost its poke.
I could see the 110kph sign in the distance so started to get ready for the quick squirt up to that speed and maybe a tad more as the bike may have carboned up you know at those low speeds so reaching up with my left hand I flipped the visor down at that moment the visor shut and my left hand was about halfway back to the grip I had 5 distinct bee impacts/splats at eye level.
You say that's not a real big issue well it sorta is to me as I am hyper-allergic to the little baskets, one did get into my helmet years later gaffing me near my left eye in the mid '80's and put me in the hospital within 15 minutes thank goodness we were only 10 minutes from Bunbury they did give me some very strong drugs there as I remember riding my VF1000R through the clouds whilst in the emergency ward:p

A few years ago, the missus and I were in the TR6 with the top down, when a bee struck me in the forehead and landed dead between us. I look over and the wife was trying to climb out car going 50 mph. I almost wrecked the car I was laughing so hard.

Nothing like a few wasp nests around the windows at home to put off any budding housebreakers.

Straight WD40 is ok on wasps as it blocks the pores they breathe through plus makes it difficult for them to fly. Flaming WD40 is quicker though and burns off thier wings so they can't attack.

As mentioned above spray glue is effective.

I disposed of one nest with a BIG bunger, not quite a m80 but still big, it killed most outright and the few survivors were too stunned to fly so got the boot.

The petrol method works on the black bullants nests we get here.
For those not familiar think 30mm long angry biting machines. A bite feels like you have been stabbed with a soldering iron. The ones we get here are incredibly hard to kill and will keep trying to attack to the very end.

Aint that the truth Henry the Sgt Ants the big red bu**ers here well you go past their nest they usually have 1 guarding the entrance just stir them up to see what happens droves just come pouring from the nest the only way to really kill'em is to get them under your heel and spiral on them as stomping just seems to infuriate them even more...............

I used a concoction on them which mirrored Napalm (gelatinous petrol mixture) had to do it in the cooler months in case you set fire to the wheat crop

We had a walk in climb job on a utility pole one time in northern Berks that was near a creek and when we made our way in we were swarmed at nighttime by ground wasps. I got stung about 15 times and then we threw road flares on them before I could make my way up the pole. It was pretty funny because no one seen them coming and I had no idea they would even come out at night. I guess the sulpher slowed them down pretty good but the utility frowned on throwing gas on them which can be pretty rough if its not done well.

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Originally Posted by Bob Womack

In my "yoot" we took care of yellow jackets (ground wasps) by pouring gasoline (later kerosene) down the hole and throwing in a match.

Bob

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Mine too. My Grandpa and I took great personal satisfaction of breaking out napalm death on yellow jacket nests. I still do to this day. Burn em out at dark. The absolute most effective, and fun way to kill all them sum bitches. :D

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

That would be good fun too...

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LOL! Didn't think about fun...BUT! when you approach 60 years old...have a bad back...and can't RUN very fast, you find the QUICKEST solution possible.

Regards, Phillip

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Originally Posted by henry r

... The petrol method works on the black bullants nests we get here.
For those not familiar think 30mm long angry biting machines. ...

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:yikes: 30mm long !?!?

EDIT: I just googled "bull ant australia" and perused the images ... OMG!

After seeing pics of those, I don't think that I will ever again complain about any of the pests that we have 'round here.

"...he would sprinkle a little gun powder over the top of the wasp nest ..."

Smokeless powder or Black powder? The 'sudden flash' sounds like Black powder.

I'm not sure about the finer details of the gun powder method.

I like Henry's descriptions of the "Australian Wasp", post 34. Do you happen to work for the Australian Tourist Board, Henry? :D

Our Red Bullant the one Henryr talks about in #34 is Guinness World Records listed Myrmecia pyriformis as the world's most dangerous ant the latest death possibly attributed to this ant was in Bunbury W.A in 2011

And a steel rod punched in the ground at a 45 degree angle to give it some air. That will shoot a flame up 4-5 feet, and roast them good.

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Originally Posted by Bob Womack

In my "yoot" we took care of yellow jackets (ground wasps) by pouring gasoline (later kerosene) down the hole and throwing in a match.

Bob

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ive used my welding rig. open it up in their under ground hole unlit not too much, then put about 2 foot under water fuse in the hole. lite fuse and then move back,wasp gone