North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

"I have never seen a Yellow Jacket nest hanging in the open where they can be
destroyed with a long pole. Sounds to me like what we call "Paper Nest" wasps.
The only place I've ever seen Yellow Jacket nests is in the ground."

 

One thing this list has taught me is how wrong it is to assume that our observations in our corner of the world are universal fact.  My first instinct is to assume that my favorite fruit variety will perform the same way everywhere or that my deer respond in the same way to a repellent as the deer in Nebraska or even in the next county.  I now try to hold myself back from these kinds of assumptions although it's hard.

 

It is certainly reasonable to assume that yellow jackets would have the same nesting habits wherever they exist but I assure you that I have often found what people in this part of the world call yellowjackets (primarily yellow with dark stripes) nesting in trees in paper hives identical to the hives of what I call white-faced hornets, actually a wasp that packs about twice the poison as yellowjackets and have dark bodies with white "faces".  I have also often found grond nests of the same apparent species.  Any entomologists out there care to comment?