North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[list@ginda.us]

My fall red raspberries aren't ripe yet, but I'm beginning to worry 
about that.  I've always had bumblebees pollinating in past years.  
This year it is exclusively yellowjackets, and I don't know what I will 
do about harvest.  I still have bumblebees in other parts of the yard, 
so I suspect the yellowjackets are keeping them away from the 
raspberries.

If I can find the nest, I may try to kill them.  The clear bottle 
method sounds worth a shot.  But I was out mowing this weekend, and 
didn't see any sign of a nest.  Here on my little suburban plot, I am 
often jealous of you farmers who can kill all the disease vectors and 
yellowjacket nests close to your crops. . .

Ginda

On Tuesday, September 9, 2003, at 08:30  AM, del stubbs wrote:

> So far we are still haveing a nice harvest from our remaining autumn 
> bliss raspberries plants, but this year the yellowjackets were 
> especially hungry. The first week of picking I had to pick berries a 
> day early (not fully ripe) - or 90 percent would be eaten on. I was 
> just getting around to making up some sort of mix of corn syrup and 
> honey in a bowl - to put as a diversion near the berries - when I 
> noticed our compost pile. We had just thrown out a pile of watermelon 
> rind and it was covered with the little raskels. In a day the 
> raspberries were virtually left alone. Sweet corn cobs and cantelope 
> rind worked also but nothing as well as watermelon. Has anyone tried a 
> bowl of something sweet to distract them? Our dry winter seems to have 
> been quite hard on the bald faced hornets, have only seen a few on the 
> berries, and I understand they are an important predator. My wife , a 
> lifetime Minnesotan says this is the first summer ever where one could 
> sit out of an evening and not be eaten by mosquitos. Dry winters do 
> have their plus side. Del
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Need more e-mail storage? Get 10MB with Hotmail Extra Storage.   
> http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es
>
> _______________________________________________
> nafex mailing list nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>
> To unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also can be used to 
> change other email options):
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
>
> File attachments are NOT stripped by this list
> TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES!
> Please do not send binary files.
> Use plain text ONLY in emails!
>
> Message archives are here:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex
>
> NAFEX web site:   http://www.nafex.org/