North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["road's end farm" <organic101@linkny.com>]

They certainly will sting if the nest is disturbed, or if someone starts 
swatting them. Whether this is aggression or selfdefense depends, I 
suppose, on your point of view.

A nest where you don't want it can be dealt with by dumping water on it 
(a garden hose is good, if you can get it close enough); they don't seem 
to recognize the water deluge as an attack and don't go for the person 
behind the hose (at least, the ones here don't). When they dry out they 
will probably go elsewhere, though it may take more than one drenching. 
Admittedly this technique isn't very useful if the nest is in a stack of 
straw bales inside a barn --

--Rivka

On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 11:10 AM, hector black wrote:

> Maybe those Yankee jackets are less agressive than our Rebel ones.  I 
> had a
> nest in my orchard a couple of times.  Once scything by hand I met them 
> and
> was covered from head to toe with painful stings.  Other times they 
> nest in
> the blueberry patch and don't take kindly to pickers who come near - 
> same
> thing in the blackberry patch.  I don't usually bother wild creatures 
> but
> have very low tolerance for yellow jackets.   Hector Black  zone 6 
> middle TN
>
>     I'm sure they have their place in the scheme of things, their 
> "niche" or
> whatever, but I just don't want it close to mine.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "road's end farm" <organic101@linkny.com>
> To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 7:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] yellowjackets
>
>
> > In my experience yellow jackets aren't aggressive at all unless you
> > start swatting them or disturb the nest. We have a lot of them, and 
> > I've
> > never been stung except as a result of accidentally halfsquashing one 
> > or
> > messing up a nest, and neither have other people here. I think they get
> > their reputation for aggressiveness from people who start swatting at
> > them first.
> >
> > I believe they will do some pollination.
> >
> > Rivka (Finger Lakes New York, zone 5 mostly)