I'm trapped by a swarm of angry hornets

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A user reported encountering a massive swarm of hornets, estimated to be as large as a 2000 sq ft house, while working outside. The swarm seemed agitated, possibly due to a raccoon disturbing their hive. Observations indicated the swarm was spreading, creating a dangerous situation for anyone attempting to mow the pasture where the nest might be located. Discussions included the potential dangers of hornets, particularly their ability to sting multiple times, and the need for caution when approaching the area. Suggestions for dealing with the swarm ranged from using insect sprays to hiring professionals for removal. The conversation also touched on the behavior of hornets and wasps, with some participants sharing their own experiences with stinging insects. The user expressed a desire to investigate the nest further but acknowledged the risks involved, especially with thick grass obscuring visibility. Overall, the thread highlighted the challenges and dangers posed by large hornet swarms and the various strategies for managing them.
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I've never seen anything like it. I walked outside to do some work when I heard the distinct sound of angry hornets buzzing madly. I looked up, and about thirty feet in front of me over the tall grass was the edge of a dense swarm of hornets, easily as large as a 2000 sq foot house. I stood there for a moment to observe the swarm, but within a few seconds I started getting buzzed and I could see the swarm moving towards me, which quickly sent me back into the office.

I guess something got into the hive... in fact, lately there has been a raccoon living in the trees lining the pasture, so that would be my first guess. Our cats should be okay since they tend to stay near the house [my office cat is with me now], and I never heard anything suggesting that an animal was in distress, but the swarm is speading out so it looks like they have no place to go. It must have happened just before I walked outside.

Right now it is like a busy intersection all around out there with the swarm covering at least the area of a football field, but really it was quite an amazing thing to see up close. It certainly got my attention!

And I think I'll just sit here for a bit. :rolleyes:
 
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Take a picture of it!
 
cyrusabdollahi said:
Take a picture of it!

I was about to post the exact same thing...

Soooo, take a picture!
 
I don't have a camera down here. It's too late anyway.

You're right though, that could have been a priceless shot. Too bad! :frown:
 
could have?? Go get your camera, a stick, and jab at that bee hive. You owe us that much.
 
I have to wonder what the collision rate is for a swarm like that. :biggrin: With the speed that they are darting around and the density of the initial swarm, it's hard to imagine how they could navigate.
 
cyrusabdollahi said:
could have?? Go get your camera, a stick, and jab at that bee hive. You owe us that much.

You may get your wish - later I will need to see what's going on. We might have a large hive on the ground and it's time to have the pasture mowed. It could be very dangerous to step on or mow over the hive. And with the grass three and four feet tall, you are nearly walking blind out there.

Tsu pretty much disappears if she tries to walk through it. :biggrin:
 
Darn! I was helping a local family mow and bale hay about 25 years ago, and the laziest of the teenagers asked if I wanted to drive the tractor for a while and rake while he took my place tossing 75# bales on the wagon. I thought it odd, but took him up on it. On my first pass down the next row, I raked up a damaged nest of yellow jackets, who immediately showed me a good time. The creep had cut the nest with a the sickle-bar mower the day before and knew that I was going to get nailed. His brother, uncles, father and grandfather were very nice guys - some people are just rats.
 
Ivan Seeking said:
You may get your wish - later I will need to see what's going on. We might have a large hive on the ground and it's time to have the pasture mowed. It could be very dangerous to step on or mow over the hive. And with the grass three and four feet tall, you are nearly walking blind out there.

Tsu pretty much disappears if she tries to walk through it. :biggrin:

Do like on that episode of American Chopper, dump gasoline all over the grass and throw a rag on it that's on fire. BOOF! Bees gone.

Actually, isn't there a shortage of bees? You could probably sell them to a bee keeper.
 
  • #10
These are wasps, not bees.

Man, it's still crazy out there. I tried to go out and work again and lasted for about two minutes before they started after me.
 
  • #11
I think someone needs to start an emergency Wasp/Bee/Hornet removal service. The one thing I fear about moving out is having to deal with stinging insects :(
 
  • #12
Bees and wasps don't bother me. I just hate those really big bees we have here that are about 1.5" long and really thick and stubby. They keep flying circles and dart back and forth infront of you because there so stupid. They hover and then change directions suddenly and dart off really fast in one direction, then hover and dart back. Rinse and repeat.
 
  • #13
SticksandStones said:
I think someone needs to start an emergency Wasp/Bee/Hornet removal service. The one thing I fear about moving out is having to deal with stinging insects :(


We have a number of bee removal services here in AZ since the killer bees arrived.
 
  • #14
cyrusabdollahi said:
Bees and wasps don't bother me. I just hate those really big bees we have here that are about 1.5" long and really thick and stubby. They keep flying circles and dart back and forth infront of you because there so stupid. They hover and then change directions suddenly and dart off really fast in one direction, then hover and dart back. Rinse and repeat.

I can't go outside for more than five minutes without that as well. It's always bumblebees. And me being allergic, my heart gets pumping real fast. :mad:

On my hikes, I started carrying a spray bottle filled with soap water.
 
  • #15
Wow, here we don't have a problem at all with bees/wasps/etc. Yeah I might occasionally see a bee/wasp if I am out looking at a garden, but other than that they are very rare.
 
  • #16
They've been really bad up north, too. You pull out the fresh salmon and they will literally sting you over it.
 
  • #17
Pythagorean said:
They've been really bad up north, too. You pull out the fresh salmon and they will literally sting you over it.

*Notes not to carry Salmon outside*
 
  • #18
Pythagorean said:
They've been really bad up north, too. You pull out the fresh salmon and they will literally sting you over it.

Hmm...do you think we should store the new member initiation fish someplace other than Ivan's barn? :rolleyes:
 
  • #19
Moonbear said:
Hmm...do you think we should store the new member initiation fish someplace other than Ivan's barn? :rolleyes:

It THAT what I smell?!? All this time I thought it was me. :rolleyes:
 
  • #20
Are they still swarming today? You might want to make sure you're coverd while trying to locate their nest.
 
  • #21
I tried to walk out there last night, but even with a good flashlight I couldn't see a thing ahead of me because the grass is so thick and tall, so I decided not to venture any further out. [plus I am hyperallergic to the grass this time of year]. But yes, there is a constant swarm [a little one] over the area today. I think the nest might have fallen from the nearest tree because I keep seeing them hovering around the same spot in the tree, but there is nothing there. Later I'll probably drive over to it and take a look.
 
  • #22
HORNET and WASP SPRAY. This stuff will paralyze them immediately and they die very quickly. You don't want to smush one because they give off a smell that causes the others to swarm.

You can nail a single wasp from 20 feet away.

I have a wasp problem here and the spray is always with me.
 
  • #23
Yeah, I have three cans in my office. :biggrin:

Honestly, I'd bet there were ten to twenty-thousand wasps out there yesterday. [I figured ~2000 sq feet by 15 feet high with an average of 1 wasp per cubit foot when I first saw the swarm]
 
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  • #24
Ivan Seeking said:
Honestly, I'd bet there were ten to twenty-thousand wasps out there yesterday. [I figured ~2000 sq feet by 15 feet high with an average of 1 wasp per cubit foot when I first saw the swarm]

Good lord! Yeah, you start spraying and they're going to take you down. :bugeye:
 
  • #25
No doubt, this is a very dangerous situation. I'm taking my time while thinking about how to best handle this.
 
  • #26
Ivan Seeking said:
No doubt, this is a very dangerous situation. I'm taking my time while thinking about how to best handle this.
No Kidding! Unlike a bee, the stinger doesn't break off after they sting you, so they can sting you repeatedly.

You might have to hire a professional. I had a hive of honey bees nest inside the wall of my house down in Houston. Whenever I would open the bathroom cabinet upstairs, bees would fly out. I had to hire a guy to remove the hive. He was really upset because he couldn't get them all out alive and was all upset about the loss of the honey bees. :frown:

I don't think anyone will care about losing wasps.
 
  • #27
How about a fire hose? The water won't kill them, but will knock them to the ground so they can't swarm while you do whatever you decide the next step is (kerosene poured on the hive followed quickly by a match is a good start, if you can locate the hive.

Thankfully, the wasps around here are pretty tame. Every year, it seems they try to build a small nest in the patio umbrella, but never get more than about 6 combs built into it (usually just one or two solitary wasps). Once I knock the nest down for the year, they don't rebuild until the next year. Of course, that could also be because I spray the umbrella with insecticide in the summer...helps keep away the mosquitoes too, and better than spraying myself or the ground. Nothing helps keep away bumbling beetles under the porch light at night, or clumsy grasshoppers trying to fly around (or something very much like a grasshopper that takes wing...Ember likes chasing them when she gets outdoor privileges...she's just like a dog now, getting all excited to have her harness put on so she can go for a walk on the deck and lawn...she still gets scared the moment another person is outside though, but is getting better about it).
 
  • #28
Evo said:
You might have to hire a professional.

Are you kidding? I'm middle-age man. It is genetically impossible for me to ask for help. :biggrin:
 
  • #29
Ivan Seeking said:
Are you kidding? I'm middle-age man. It is genetically impossible for me to ask for help. :biggrin:
:smile: :smile: :smile:

Poor Tsu.

What am I saying? At least she's got "Middle Age Man", I've got squat. :cry:
 
  • #30
Moonbear said:
How about a fire hose? The water won't kill them, but will knock them to the ground so they can't swarm while you do whatever you decide the next step is (kerosene poured on the hive followed quickly by a match is a good start, if you can locate the hive.

Unfortunately we've had a very dry spring and I'm a little nervous about fire at this point.

Thankfully, the wasps around here are pretty tame. Every year, it seems they try to build a small nest in the patio umbrella, but never get more than about 6 combs built into it (usually just one or two solitary wasps). Once I knock the nest down for the year, they don't rebuild until the next year. Of course, that could also be because I spray the umbrella with insecticide in the summer...helps keep away the mosquitoes too, and better than spraying myself or the ground. Nothing helps keep away bumbling beetles under the porch light at night, or clumsy grasshoppers trying to fly around (or something very much like a grasshopper that takes wing...Ember likes chasing them when she gets outdoor privileges...she's just like a dog now, getting all excited to have her harness put on so she can go for a walk on the deck and lawn...she still gets scared the moment another person is outside though, but is getting better about it).

We've always had to live with the summer hornets but I've never seen anything like this before.

We had a dog who got into a hornet's nest once. Before this he would try to bite at the things when they flew around. After his encounter, if he heard a hornet and Tsu was sitting outside, he's jump in her lap [all 90+ lbs of him] and then try to climb her like a tree in an effort to hide behind her. :biggrin:
 
  • #31
Today it looks like most of the hornets have disappeared and that it might even be safe to walk over and take a look. I'm expecting to find a nest that fell from the tree and was too badly damaged for the hive to recover, but I am still very curious as to what I will find... but maybe a little more time is in order, just to be safe.

Sometimes it pays to procrastinate. :biggrin:
 
  • #32
Evo said:
:smile: :smile: :smile:

Poor Tsu.

:smile: At least she has medical training. :biggrin:
 
  • #33
Moonbear said:
How about a fire hose? The water won't kill them, but will knock them to the ground so they can't swarm while you do whatever you decide the next step is (kerosene poured on the hive followed quickly by a match is a good start, if you can locate the hive.

Thankfully, the wasps around here are pretty tame. Every year, it seems they try to build a small nest in the patio umbrella, but never get more than about 6 combs built into it (usually just one or two solitary wasps). Once I knock the nest down for the year, they don't rebuild until the next year. Of course, that could also be because I spray the umbrella with insecticide in the summer...helps keep away the mosquitoes too, and better than spraying myself or the ground. Nothing helps keep away bumbling beetles under the porch light at night, or clumsy grasshoppers trying to fly around (or something very much like a grasshopper that takes wing...Ember likes chasing them when she gets outdoor privileges...she's just like a dog now, getting all excited to have her harness put on so she can go for a walk on the deck and lawn...she still gets scared the moment another person is outside though, but is getting better about it).

The worst spot for us is under the edge of our pool. We have to go around every week and spray nest after nest. Fortunately there haven't been many this year, although it looks like some bumblebees started a nest near our porch. I can live with those though - they look cute and don't bother us.
 
  • #34
When I think I'm going to be near bees/hornets, I carry a big can of hair spray, it sticks to there wings and they drop to the ground, unable to fly.
 
  • #35
I once had a whole colony move into the chimney at my house, but they were honey bees. The whole radius of the house plus garden was covered by bees. They started coming down the chimney at one point and that's when the trouble really began.

We also had owls come in and make a nest on the chimney, it was a very popular place.
 
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  • #36
-Job- said:
I once had a whole colony move into the chimney at my house, but they were honey bees. The whole radius of the house plus garden was covered by bees. They started coming down the chimney at one point and that's when the trouble really began.

Yikes! So did you at least get some honey out of the chimney?
 
  • #37
There was some honey gathered from the nest, but i didn't see any of it.
 
  • #38
Now it's starting to seem that we have a roving swarm? Does this make any sense? Do they swarm in early summer for some reason? As I said, at first they were all swarming around one area with the size of the swarm decreasing each day. Yesterday there was probably only dozens to a few hundred flyling around. Then this morning there was a good size swarm out there again near the same place but relocated by about twenty feet. This afternoon they were gone when hornets are normally buzzing all around. Yesterday evening I went out and took a look but didn't see a large nest on the ground where I expected to find one. It could still be hidden in the grass but I looked near what seemed to be the center of the swarm.

Now I know that we do get tremendously large nests here in Oregon as I've seem them as large as a basketball, and the size of the initial swarm was in line with some of the nests I've seen, but I have never seen an entire swarm moving around like this.
 
  • #39
Well, I never found a nest, and I finally had the pasture mowed but he didn't quite finish mowing - the hornets ran him off! When he got near the tree mentioned earlier, they started to swarm. Luckily he saved that area for last.

I think the nest may be in the tree trunk. I can't see one but it is certainly somewhere nearby, and a very large one at that! I'll probably try to figure out where the nest is and wait until winter to get it.
 
  • #40
Wait until winter? You're no fun.:biggrin:

Do you think that there may be another queen and they are moving to start another nest?
 
  • #41
Ivan Seeking said:
Well, I never found a nest, and I finally had the pasture mowed but he didn't quite finish mowing - the hornets ran him off! When he got near the tree mentioned earlier, they started to swarm. Luckily he saved that area for last.

I think the nest may be in the tree trunk. I can't see one but it is certainly somewhere nearby, and a very large one at that! I'll probably try to figure out where the nest is and wait until winter to get it.

Call in an exterminator and get it removed.
 
  • #42
They are no threat in cold weather - they can't move. When it gets cold I'll have my wife Tsu take care of it. :rolleyes:
 
  • #43
cyrusabdollahi said:
about 1.5" long and really thick and stubby.
Cicada killers. A lot these in parts of Texas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_killer_wasp
Might as well include the Cicadas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada

swarm
If the critters are truly swarming, like a small tornado, chances are they're re-locating (leaving an old hive, or a splinter group following a second queen). Since there's no hive to protect, they generally aren't aggressive, and won't sting while they're swarming. The key is a general lateral movement while swarming. If they're protecting a nest, they're more scattered, and there's no net lateral movment. I've had a swarm of rather large hornets pass right by me while I was at a stop light on a bicycle. The main concern is for the hornets not to get "caught in clothing" (as mentioned in the article) which would trigger a trapped reaction.

relocating honey bees
I live near the edge of an unpopulated area. The local vector control frowns on killing any critters in our area. There's a service to relocate honey bees. The guy comes out in a van, dons a bee keeper suit, captures the queen bee, guides her into a small box with a string, then hangs the box in the back of the van and just waits for almost all of the bees to surround the queen, then he closes up the van, and relocates the bees to a honey farm.
 
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  • #44
Jeff Reid said:
If the critters are truly swarming, like a small tornado, chances are they're re-locating (leaving an old hive, or a splinter group following a second queen).

That's what Integral suggested. It would also explain why I haven't seen as many since, even when they started to go after my tractor man.
 
  • #45
Ivan Seeking said:
They are no threat in cold weather - they can't move. When it gets cold I'll have my wife Tsu take care of it. :rolleyes:

I meant remove them before the winter. Maybe I'm just weird, but my property isn't here for spawn's of satan to relocate and freeload. If they want to stay on my property they can pay rent or meet Mr.Raid. :)
 
  • #46
The year before last was a bumper year for white-faced hornets, and they built a nest in a particularly good patch of blackberries on the edge of the woods in the back yard. I didn't want to poison the patch or the soil, so I just avoided that patch, until the night-time temps dropped to the low 40's and the black bear from out back (with whom I have to share the berries) ate the hornets, grubs, food stocks, everything. Nothing was left of the nest but shreds of gray paper. At least I got to pick blackberries from that patch until frost hit. Get a bear, Ivan!
 
  • #47
turbo-1 said:
Get a bear, Ivan!

Moonbear! Turbo says this is your job.
 
  • #48
Ivan Seeking said:
Moonbear! Turbo says this is your job.
Sure! Hornets are very small, and Moonie's used to tackling much larger beasts - baaaaa. :smile:
 
  • #49
http://img.timeinc.net/popsci/images/2007/01/mega_jan07_9.jpg
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/photogallery/54647d505244c010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd/5.html
 
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  • #50
Ivan Seeking said:
http://img.timeinc.net/popsci/images/2007/01/mega_jan07_9.jpg
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/photogallery/54647d505244c010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd/5.html
Whoa! You found my car!
 
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