Freaking yellow jackets!

We hunt in Hardeman County, NE of Quanah, and had my stand and dad's stand covered with YJ's. My count for the weekend kill was 213, my dad didn't bother to count his. 4 cans of wasp spray, 2 bug bombs, 2 cans of expanding foam and 3 tubes of caulk and I still have them little boggers in my stand. Hoping it gets cold enough by the next weekend to kill them or else I'm setting fire to the stand.

Anybody else having this problem?

This is from the opening morning kills

Get you some ProZap Pest Strips or fly ear tags for cattle and leave one in your blind. It will not keep them out but will kill them overnight. I have used Pest Strips for the last 23 yrs in deer blinds.

You bet. Early season deer hunting in Texas. Killed over 100 last weekend no stings....yet.

I had a huge problem a couple of weeks ago with Red Wasps easily a couple of hundred in a stand. At home I had a huge nest under the arm of a wicker chair. I was spraying wasps for four days. They just kept trying to rebuild.

They are usually bad right before a good cold front. The cooler weathers makes the wasps look for a place to hibernate.

Yep, hunt in Hardeman also killed a bunch last week. I don't think you could have counted them there were so many.

I had the same thing. I bombed them the weekend before and had even more this weekend. Bombed them again. My daughter got stung early Saturday morning but took like the trooper she is. Didn't even squeal.

Never seen those before. Where you buy them?

Feed Stores, hardware stores, lumber stores, etc.

^^ I got mine at HD.

I crawled into my blind this weekend to find a hundred or so. Funny thing was that it was a mix of red wasps and yellow jackets. I've never seen them in the same place together. I backed out and came back that afternoon with wasp spray. Killed them all and left the can in the blind for next weekend. I'm sure I'll need it then too.
Thanks!!
Matt

Good Lawd BP, that is a heck of a lot of stingers!! Better carry an epi pen on your duty belt!!

I don't have any in my blind as it is pretty tight, there is a nest of the red wasp by the trap door, but they haven't bothered me. Now yellow jackets have been swarming here though like crazy! Went out to my little shed Friday before the opener, when I opened the door (they are white), I immediately noticed a huge brown spot on the inside of the door as I opened it, all YJ, probably 2-300! Thank goodness it was cool and they just sat there in a huge elongated pattern, can of starting fluid killed everyone (all I had I could grab in that shed.

You guys that have the wasp and yellow jacket problems.....do you check your stands in the spring and summer, or just show up opening day after leaving it for the year? It's always been my experience that these insects build their nests in the spring, so I always go around in the spring and find them and kill them when there is only a few in a small nest. Never had a problem as long as I do that. But if I don't check it all year, there will be a huge nest come fall.

Wasp arent nesting right now from what I have seen, also haven't seen a nest in any of the recent photos buy hunters that have a nest. YJ are trying to find a warm dry spot to avoid the impending cold, so they concentrate in those areas. You can go out mid day now when the sun is up good and see hundreds of them around dead trees with loose bark, out side a house under eaves and anywhere else they can find safe to get dormant.

There has never been a nest inside my shed, yet I have killed several hundred that are "just there to get out of the weather"

There has been a few threads where honey bee's ,or owls have moved into a blind, those would be the ones that where let go for a spell.

you can also kill with soapy water, there lungs are on there backs, so its an easy kill

Yes I had this issue 2 weeks ago. Last weekend they were on the porch of my blind. I was debating taking wasp spray but wondered if the wasp spray smell would chase off deer

Just another reason I build a weather tight blind, it's sealed tight as a drum when I'm not in it.

Oh my blind is weather tight, but during this last move the exterior plywood was damaged down along the bottom and I wasn't aware of it until this happened. They came in the cracked plywood and made home behind the carpet. I will be ripping out all the carpet on the walls next trip to lease and fixing the plywood

I posted a thread about a month back with the same problem. I had red wasp nests in mine. I need to fix my "windows" though. They were a quick fix from the plexi-glass breaking.

Even after I killed them all and removed their nests, Saturday morning I had one crawl in the open window while I sat in the stand. Same thing sunday afternoon.

yellow jacket lives matter

Forgot about your thread ZK, yep, you had bonifide nest and how!

Those yellow strips are the only way to keep them out, well at least kill them so you don't have to spray and ruin a hunt with poison dripping on you. You have to put them in early Sept. You will still get them in there possibly but they will be dead when you see them once the vapor works. I buy the Hot Shot ones at HD in green package. I had over 300 dead in one blind. We took down another old blind and must have been 1,000 inside the walls. I hunted it that morning and never knew but it is gone. Wrapped and rope around it and pulled it out of there.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hot-Shot-2-29-oz-No-Pest-Insect-Strip-HG-5580-6/100004739

Yes, I used 5 cans of wasp spray three years ago and still didn't get them all...ugh!!! I've never seen anything like it. Every time I thought I'd got them all I found them somewhere else.

Good luck!

I agree; the Hot Shot strips went in back in the early summer in 4 stands, and as of last week, none of us have had any wasps, yellow jackets, spiders, bees, etc. Read the warnings though. I don't think they're safe for long exposure right out of the package. We all felt fine after 5 hours in the stands, but again, they are months from full strength. Didn't seem to deter the mosquitos though.

Don't you guys check for wasps, yellowjackets during the summer? I have killed them in the blind 3 times this year.

You're not getting it!!! They are coming into the blinds now. Not during the summer. They are trying to get out of the cold. But, in all my life, I've never seen this many-thousands.

I have heard too that they need a bit of light. One blind we have had towels draped inside the windows and is mostly dark except for around the door. And that's where we usually find a nest.

Looking at the pic above. It looks like most of them are in the same general areas. Making me think those are the areas where the most light coming in. Worth a shot.

Another blind I have does not have towels on the windows but there is space around the doors. There was only 2-3 small nests so I bombed it. I think I'm just going to duct tape the door after the season. They shouldn't be able to get in. This blind is also painted baby blue on the inside. Saw a post a few ago talking about the baby blue color. Don't know how true that is either.

Bug Bomb & a Broom Man

i use a residual base pesticide called Demand CS. I Spray my blind once a year and it will kill everything ... Wasps / spiders / flys / moths etc... They come in before dark / dead or dying by AM.

Do these work for spiders? Had a blackwidow and a brown recluse in my pop up during bow season. Only hunted in it once

Smell or no smell, I can't hunt if my blind is full of any bug that will sting or bite.
I set off a bug bomb in my blind a week before I start hunting.
It works for me.

No it won't, but you can spray the blind with DemonWP and it will kill everything you spray it on or the crawls across it for a long time. I spray the inside of my ground blind with Demon before the season.

Dang yellow jackets ruined my fun last night. Between last Saturday and Monday they moved in and started a war they won't win. Only one sting, and being 20 feet off the ground made it more exciting. Fortunately had a can of wasp killer in the blind and used it all--got most of the little buggers. Going to bomb the place next time I'm up there.

Yellow jackets all around our stands, can't get in unless the windows are open but we have hundreds of those black, furry jumping spiders! Killed 30 in one stand and certainly didn't get them all. Those things can see you and they're fast too!

If you have trouble finding the ProZaps, I've found this to work just as well. One is hanging in each of my stands right now. I keep a large ziploc in the stand and place the hanger in there when I'm hunting.