I’m sure the neighbors see this as just another normal activity at the Myers’ household.
Hemidactylussays
When I was working with a grad student on her gopher tortoise project we saw more nicely done elliptical burrows in the ground. Several times her advisor came out with us/me instead and we scoped burrows. I was worried about crotalids no doubt and wore plastic chaps to protect me. No Doubt was a huge hit at the time as were the multiple spiders the plastic chaps funneled toward my shins and maybe made me permanently immune to multiple types of spider bite. I had welts.
The stuff we saw on the cam was ok aside from flooded burrows. Gopher frogs. Shed snake skins. A tortoise here and there. No burrowing yellow jackets. I prefer my sand wasp renters in front of my front steps. I’d like to scope their burrows.
I dealt with stinging wasps or hornets near my house before. No camera scope. Deadly effective spray that kills on contact. Sting my ear and you get the business I always say.
PZ’s video recalls V/H/S series found footage horror from the start. That cannot end well given my experience watching such found footage. When I saw the first vespid I was screaming “Don’t do it PZ! Go back to your spiders!” Was your “Easy PZ!” quip at 1:43 intended to be ironic? At 3:27 it becomes a proper horror movie as we see multiple yellow jackets milling about the invading instrument. Fucking hell…
It is cool to see the endoscopic footage you got then, but it seemed to veer onto horrific found footage territory. Wasp spray. Works.
On the V/H/S scale I rate your video around 3.5/10. You survived though got bit. Ummm…that was predictable. On the Blair Witch scale it’s around 23.35/10. Yellow jackets suck!
Tethyssays
I think a large cardboard box would work as a blind, but I would set up the endoscopic camera at night when the yellowjackets can’t see to defend the nest. Then you can get in the box and spy on them without fear of getting swarmed.
bsr0says
I ran over one of those holes when I was a teenager mowing someone’s lawn. Got 3 stings on my leg, and then noticed two yellow-jackets hanging on to the shoelaces of my sneakers. The owner of the house thought I was doing some sort of rain dance up his back yard towards the house!
We let things calm down, then the homeowner poured some used motor oil down the hole, followed by a couple shovels of dirt. Problem solved.
I did watch out for those holes for the rest of that summer though.
rabbitbrushsays
One October years ago, I was digging archaeological shovel probes in the woods. Unbeknownst to me, my shovel sliced right into a yellow jacket hole. Instantly yellow jackets swarmed out of the ground. Oh shit! I dropped the shovel and ran, but I got nailed. Unlike honey bees, those fµckers can sting multiple times, so if you get one up your pant leg, for instance….aiyaiyai. One of them stung my neck. When I got home hours later, I put ice on it. But by morning, I looked in the mirror; I had no neck! It was so swollen, there was no curve from my ears to my shoulders. In horror, I ran to the clinic across the street. The doctor treated it both as an allergic reaction and as an infection, because yellow jackets around here are also called “meat bees.” They love rotten meat, and not-rotten meat. He said I was lucky. That reaction could have cut off my breathing.
The more stings you get over a lifetime, the worse the reaction gets, to the point of having to carry an epi-pen. I am extremely wary around yellow jackets. They are mean and angry and have no sense of humor.
On the other hand, they are great pollinators in my garden.
Silentbobsays
It doesn’t sound like they want to be our friends.
Rich Woodssays
Take off and nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
I usually don’t kill creatures unless I can eat them, but I’ll make an exception for things with more venom than brain.
Kill them with fire! Call Sigourney Weaver and tell her to bring the BIG flamethrower.
I have one of those “Bug Baffler” mesh shirts for exactly this sort of situation. I originally got it to keep me from being bitten by mosquitos and black flies, but I also use it when I open up my beehives or need to deal with a nest of angry wasps. It isn’t perfect protection against stings, but only because I don’t usually wear gloves with it, and so I pick up stings on my hands. They very rarely manage to actually sting through the mesh, and when the do it makes it so they can’t make a solid contact and so the sting is generally pretty minor. I highly recommend having one of these shirts, because You Never Know When You Will Need It.
shelldiggersays
That hole looks a lot like an armadillo den. I don’t know if it is, or even if armadillos are that far north, but the woods, and some yards, in these parts (W Tn.) are riddled with holes like that.
Obviously, if an armadillo is responsible for the hole, it’s long gone now…
We had yellow jackets living in a hole in a tree by our back deck for a while. They moved on eventually. But those guys look pretty happy where they’re at.
lasiussays
@shelldigger
That would be the smallest nine-banded armadillo ever.
Tethyssays
@lasius and paulhutch
It’s actually the Western Yellowjacket, which has the confusing binomial Vespula pensylvanica even though Pennsylvania is in the eastern US.
Specifically, it closely resembles V. germanica. Though both species have a similar diamond-shaped black mark on the first tergum, V. pensylvanica can usually be differentiated by the continuous yellow ring (often referred to as an eye-loop) present around each eye.
*wiki
The eye-loop is clearly visible in the last few seconds of the video before PZ had to retreat.
I can not see the yellow streak between the top of the eyes and the forehead in PZs video that you would expect in V. pennsylvanica. I still think it’s V. germanica.
Tethyssays
@lasius
It is far more likely that you will find North American species in North America. I already noted that they are very similar, but V. germanica isn’t found in Minnesota.
At about 3:55 in the video you get a profile of the wasp head, and the yellow eye loop. It’s passing the camera on the right hand side of the burrow. The loop is not very visible from the top. Apparently the different castes of yellowjackets in the nest have slightly different patterns, though the wiki doesn’t have any illustrations of them.
At about 3:55 in the video you get a profile of the wasp head, and the yellow eye loop. It’s passing the camera on the right hand side of the burrow. The loop is not very visible from the top.
I don’t see it. V. germanica has yellow behind the eyes too. It’s only the yellow bar seperating the top of the eyes from the black forehead that distinguishes the two patterns, and I frankly do not see it here. So I am still unconvinced.
Apparently the different castes of yellowjackets in the nest have slightly different patterns, though the wiki doesn’t have any illustrations of them.
There are no different castes among workers in yellowjackets.
Tethyssays
@lasius
It’s silly to insist that PZ has a colony of European yellowjackets nesting in his Minnesota yard, regardless of your beliefs. They are a native species, which rather rules out V. germanica.
No idea where you got the idea that there are different castes of workers. Queens, drones, workers, larvae are the usual castes in colonial species.
steve oberskisays
Has a bit of a Blair Witch vibe to it.
lasiussays
@Tethys
You do realize that V. germanica is an invasive species in North America and has been well-established in Minnesota by now, right?
Tethyssays
@lasius
There are documented instances of V. germanica in and around New York, but you will have to provide a citation for them being found anywhere else in NA. That’s a very long way from Minnesota, and our extremely harsh winters kill off most invasive species. Sadly, this doesn’t include the invasive beetle species that I’ve been battling all summer. Viburnum beetles are evil.
lasiussays
I already posted a link earlier where people posted pictures of V. germanica they took in Minnesota.
Vespula germanica has been unintentionally introduced into temperate regions worldwide. It apparently first appeared in Montreal in the 1960’s and other parts of eastern North America in the 1970’s, although there is a record of the species collected in Ithaca, New York in 1891 (Menke and Snelling 1975). The species reached California by 1989.
Tethyssays
Oy, PZ could you please attempt a good pic of the facial eye loop markings so the ant stops insisting that it’s a European species rather than the native Western Yellowjacket.
Parsimony, it’s a thing. Minnesota is nowhere near California, or the east coast. PZ is almost in the dead center of the North American continent, which is in North Dakota.
lasiussays
Yeah, but this wasp does not have the “eye loop”, it looks like V. germanica. And V. germanica has been recorded in Minnesota.
Lauren Walker says
I’m sure the neighbors see this as just another normal activity at the Myers’ household.
Hemidactylus says
When I was working with a grad student on her gopher tortoise project we saw more nicely done elliptical burrows in the ground. Several times her advisor came out with us/me instead and we scoped burrows. I was worried about crotalids no doubt and wore plastic chaps to protect me. No Doubt was a huge hit at the time as were the multiple spiders the plastic chaps funneled toward my shins and maybe made me permanently immune to multiple types of spider bite. I had welts.
The stuff we saw on the cam was ok aside from flooded burrows. Gopher frogs. Shed snake skins. A tortoise here and there. No burrowing yellow jackets. I prefer my sand wasp renters in front of my front steps. I’d like to scope their burrows.
I dealt with stinging wasps or hornets near my house before. No camera scope. Deadly effective spray that kills on contact. Sting my ear and you get the business I always say.
PZ’s video recalls V/H/S series found footage horror from the start. That cannot end well given my experience watching such found footage. When I saw the first vespid I was screaming “Don’t do it PZ! Go back to your spiders!” Was your “Easy PZ!” quip at 1:43 intended to be ironic? At 3:27 it becomes a proper horror movie as we see multiple yellow jackets milling about the invading instrument. Fucking hell…
It is cool to see the endoscopic footage you got then, but it seemed to veer onto horrific found footage territory. Wasp spray. Works.
On the V/H/S scale I rate your video around 3.5/10. You survived though got bit. Ummm…that was predictable. On the Blair Witch scale it’s around 23.35/10. Yellow jackets suck!
Tethys says
I think a large cardboard box would work as a blind, but I would set up the endoscopic camera at night when the yellowjackets can’t see to defend the nest. Then you can get in the box and spy on them without fear of getting swarmed.
bsr0 says
I ran over one of those holes when I was a teenager mowing someone’s lawn. Got 3 stings on my leg, and then noticed two yellow-jackets hanging on to the shoelaces of my sneakers. The owner of the house thought I was doing some sort of rain dance up his back yard towards the house!
We let things calm down, then the homeowner poured some used motor oil down the hole, followed by a couple shovels of dirt. Problem solved.
I did watch out for those holes for the rest of that summer though.
rabbitbrush says
One October years ago, I was digging archaeological shovel probes in the woods. Unbeknownst to me, my shovel sliced right into a yellow jacket hole. Instantly yellow jackets swarmed out of the ground. Oh shit! I dropped the shovel and ran, but I got nailed. Unlike honey bees, those fµckers can sting multiple times, so if you get one up your pant leg, for instance….aiyaiyai. One of them stung my neck. When I got home hours later, I put ice on it. But by morning, I looked in the mirror; I had no neck! It was so swollen, there was no curve from my ears to my shoulders. In horror, I ran to the clinic across the street. The doctor treated it both as an allergic reaction and as an infection, because yellow jackets around here are also called “meat bees.” They love rotten meat, and not-rotten meat. He said I was lucky. That reaction could have cut off my breathing.
The more stings you get over a lifetime, the worse the reaction gets, to the point of having to carry an epi-pen. I am extremely wary around yellow jackets. They are mean and angry and have no sense of humor.
On the other hand, they are great pollinators in my garden.
Silentbob says
It doesn’t sound like they want to be our friends.
Rich Woods says
Take off and nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Erlend Meyer says
I usually don’t kill creatures unless I can eat them, but I’ll make an exception for things with more venom than brain.
Kill them with fire! Call Sigourney Weaver and tell her to bring the BIG flamethrower.
lasius says
Vespula germanica, is it?
paulhutch says
@ lasius more likely our native Eastern Yellowjacket, a very aggressive species
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_yellowjacket
Glad it didn’t turn out worse for you PZ
paulhutch says
@ lasius more likely our native Eastern Yellowjacket, a very aggressive species
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_yellowjacket
Glad it didn’t turn out worse for you PZ
lasius says
@paulhutch
I don’t think so. Check the markings on the abdomen in the previous post.
timothyeisele says
I have one of those “Bug Baffler” mesh shirts for exactly this sort of situation. I originally got it to keep me from being bitten by mosquitos and black flies, but I also use it when I open up my beehives or need to deal with a nest of angry wasps. It isn’t perfect protection against stings, but only because I don’t usually wear gloves with it, and so I pick up stings on my hands. They very rarely manage to actually sting through the mesh, and when the do it makes it so they can’t make a solid contact and so the sting is generally pretty minor. I highly recommend having one of these shirts, because You Never Know When You Will Need It.
shelldigger says
That hole looks a lot like an armadillo den. I don’t know if it is, or even if armadillos are that far north, but the woods, and some yards, in these parts (W Tn.) are riddled with holes like that.
Obviously, if an armadillo is responsible for the hole, it’s long gone now…
We had yellow jackets living in a hole in a tree by our back deck for a while. They moved on eventually. But those guys look pretty happy where they’re at.
lasius says
@shelldigger
That would be the smallest nine-banded armadillo ever.
Tethys says
@lasius and paulhutch
It’s actually the Western Yellowjacket, which has the confusing binomial Vespula pensylvanica even though Pennsylvania is in the eastern US.
*wiki
The eye-loop is clearly visible in the last few seconds of the video before PZ had to retreat.
lasius says
@Tethys
I am not convinced. Look at this still Look at this still.
Now compare it to the two species.
Vespula germanica
Vespula pensylvanica
I can not see the yellow streak between the top of the eyes and the forehead in PZs video that you would expect in V. pennsylvanica. I still think it’s V. germanica.
Tethys says
@lasius
It is far more likely that you will find North American species in North America. I already noted that they are very similar, but V. germanica isn’t found in Minnesota.
At about 3:55 in the video you get a profile of the wasp head, and the yellow eye loop. It’s passing the camera on the right hand side of the burrow. The loop is not very visible from the top. Apparently the different castes of yellowjackets in the nest have slightly different patterns, though the wiki doesn’t have any illustrations of them.
lasius says
Yes it is: https://bugguide.net/node/view/14083/data
On the contrary, V. pennsylvanica isn’t: https://bugguide.net/node/view/12981/data
I don’t see it. V. germanica has yellow behind the eyes too. It’s only the yellow bar seperating the top of the eyes from the black forehead that distinguishes the two patterns, and I frankly do not see it here. So I am still unconvinced.
There are no different castes among workers in yellowjackets.
Tethys says
@lasius
It’s silly to insist that PZ has a colony of European yellowjackets nesting in his Minnesota yard, regardless of your beliefs. They are a native species, which rather rules out V. germanica.
No idea where you got the idea that there are different castes of workers. Queens, drones, workers, larvae are the usual castes in colonial species.
steve oberski says
Has a bit of a Blair Witch vibe to it.
lasius says
@Tethys
You do realize that V. germanica is an invasive species in North America and has been well-established in Minnesota by now, right?
Tethys says
@lasius
There are documented instances of V. germanica in and around New York, but you will have to provide a citation for them being found anywhere else in NA. That’s a very long way from Minnesota, and our extremely harsh winters kill off most invasive species. Sadly, this doesn’t include the invasive beetle species that I’ve been battling all summer. Viburnum beetles are evil.
lasius says
I already posted a link earlier where people posted pictures of V. germanica they took in Minnesota.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/14083/data
Otherwise have this: https://jhr.pensoft.net/article/1606/
Tethys says
Oy, PZ could you please attempt a good pic of the facial eye loop markings so the ant stops insisting that it’s a European species rather than the native Western Yellowjacket.
Parsimony, it’s a thing. Minnesota is nowhere near California, or the east coast. PZ is almost in the dead center of the North American continent, which is in North Dakota.
lasius says
Yeah, but this wasp does not have the “eye loop”, it looks like V. germanica. And V. germanica has been recorded in Minnesota.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/2031824/bgimage
Also they reached California on the land route across the continent, and they occur further north in Canada as well.
That’s enough parsimony for me.