Are there yellow jackets in the UK?

[raccoon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jacket

[HopeHoops]

1. That looks a lot like a European Hornet, which have found their way to the US.

I had them in my vinyl siding for three years before I finally killed off the colony. Very aggressive and they serve no purpose other than to be pests. It is one of the few "bee"s that I'll kill. Honey bees and bumble bees have god-like status in our yard. Brown wasps are generally too slow and stupid to be a problem. Most hornets will back off after a few warning swipes with a board. Those fuckers need to be whapped across the yard.

Edit: I actually wrote "aluminum siding". :rofl:

[raccoon]

2. "Very aggressive"--amen to that! nt

[HopeHoops]

3. They're fast, but not smart. I keep a board handy and a good backhand serve takes care of them.

There aren't many things I'll kill, but they are one of them. We have a solid no-kill rule for spiders in the house and garden. Okay, sure, you get a few bites once in a while, but they eat WAY more nasties than you could possibly count. Squash bugs and their eggs are another kill. Stay off my food. Other than that, we pretty much leave things alone.

[krispos42]

10. Try a badminton racquet instead of a board.

The racquet cuts the air a lot cleaner and faster than a board (much less of a bug-moving shockwave) and the strings slice them up pretty good. Basically, one swipe and they stop flying. Then just step on'em.


Works on flies, too.

[chrisa]

4. Yellow Jackets in my yard are extremely passive.

My hand has been inches from their nests at times. I'm probably lucky I haven't been stung, but oh well.

The ones that always annoy me are the rarer white-faced hornets. Those things are extremely aggressive.

I was stung twice in these last couple of years, and both times it was only when I accidentally made physical contact with a bee - one was hiding under a pillow that I stuck my foot under (don't know how it got there), and the second somehow got lodged in my sandal while I was walking. Neither were yellow jackets. One was some kind of paper wasp, or maybe one of those ground dwellers, and the other was an orangish-color (some kind of hornet?).

[elleng]

5. No, just RedCoats.

[ohiosmith]

6. Hahahaha!

:thumbsup:

[Raffi Ella]

7. I don't know about the UK but!

I have a baldfaced hornets nest in a cherry tree beside my house. It's HUGE! LIke this:




I read up on them and they are eco friendly to some extent and if you leave them alone they are supposedly not aggressive. It's pretty high up(15ft or so) so not too worrisome but still, I am pretty nervous when I mow around that tree.

[LeftishBrit]

8. We have wasps. I haven't seen any that look *exactly* like that; but some are fairly similar.

[astral]

9. I don't think those hornets are aggressive.

Although I was bit by one as a kid, throwing a sheet over my shoulder taken off the line where somehow it got between my shoulder and the sheet and I had an indentation where he ripped out a piece of my flesh. But they don't scare me, they can hover around me and fly away same as a bee will do. I suppose if you got near a NEST of them it would be pretty nasty.

They must serve some useful purpose we don't know about.