so guess what we have going on here I am visiting a residential neighborhood just
before sunrise it's 5:00 in the morning and look at this there's a nice big
paper wasp nest there but these are boldface Hornets
they're called Hornets but they're actually just wasps and I'm showing you
a wide shot here to show that they have built their nest right next to a
driveway and the homeowner is very worried because he has a granddaughter
that rides her tricycle around and she recently discovered the Hornets in the
worst possible way so a friend contacted me and asked if I could come and do
something about it and I said sure leave them overnight I'll come in the morning
before sunrise and I'll just remove them if I'm allowed to clip off the branch
and that's what I'm going to show in this video here bald-faced hornet scan
have quite the attitude I'm using two cameras so as you watch the sequences
you'll see a secondary sequence it shows a different perspective all I'm gonna do
is walk up to them you can see they're flying in low line honey bees aren't out
yet altes weren't it's flying in low light and by the time the colony has a
lot of colony members they can get very defensive this time of year
now if this was someplace where there weren't children playing you to just
leave them until it gets really cold and eventually they'll just die out from the
cold and the Queen's will go and do their thing and I have the second camera
there that I'm hand holding and that is a Sony x100 for those who always want to
know what I use and I'm just gonna put these things in a bag if you notice I am
wearing a protective bee suit because I'm gonna sneak up on them and by the
time the bag gets around them they won't have time to send out all of their
defenders a lot of people want to know can you just cut out a nest like that
and just relocate it so they can be happy somewhere else well this time of
year their chances of survival are basically non-existent in a new location
but you could do that you can clip the branch in such a way that you could
reattach the branch somewhere in the woods nice and safe and far away
the bags I'm gonna put around them are heavy thick black industrial trash bags
you can leave them in the bag and you can put that in a freezer if you have
one of those horizontal deep freezes it will kill them all in the space of about
two hours don't take them out too early it's amazing how they can survive the
cold so the other thing is why are they using flashlights or a spotlight on
these things well if you really hate someone hand them a white flashlight and
say hey come and help me take this Hornet nest out they will go right at
that white light and you will alert them right away and whoever's holding that
light is gonna be the recipient of many stings so I'm just gonna come in here
with my nippers and we're gonna clip this branch off I want to save as much
of it as I can because I'd like to dry it out once it's empty and hang it as an
ornament or an educational tool if you notice there are many entrances here and
just like with a bee hive if you don't bump them and knock them
around a lot they really won't be on if you come in here and bang into lumber
and with a stick or something your neighborhood kids throw rocks at them
you're just asking for it they have a nickname bullet Hornet the reason they
come at you like bullets and they sting hard don't forget too that they can
spray their venom into the air sometimes people start coughing and they don't
understand why that they fail to understand that they're spritzing venom
into the air and people are breathing it in so you should wear a foggy suit you
want to be well-acquainted with venomous insects before you get into removing
something like that but look what we did we didn't have to find them
didn't have to spray them with any kind of insecticide there are scouts
returning that will eventually just find their own way some people want to know
hey when the scouts come back will they rebuild a nest no they don't they just
scour around a little bit and they will be on their own until they just expire
naturally they get their resources from the environment they're our nectar
drinkers but when they bring little food resources to the developing larvae
they're normally other insect pests and even honeybees by the way they will
feed them to their larvae and then the larvae will excrete a liquid that's a
nutritional benefit to the foraging bald-faced Hornets
she's gonna give you a close look of a nest again and it shows you what it
looked like from the top if you tore a hole in this it would have it repaired
in a matter of minutes unless it's a big hole but they just continue to make
paper and they do that by collecting cellulose chewing unexposed wood dead
wood and what they do is they come and mix it with their saliva and they attach
it that's why we get all of these interesting lines of paper in their nest
so it is very interesting to look at if they wouldn't sting you they would be
just great to observe from a distance the cameras having a tough time here
exposure focusing on that but look at the top with all these little vents
through the top very interesting stuff and of course while the colonies active
whenever there's any deterioration on a paper nest like this they are constantly
repairing and expanding it and of course there is grid comb inside in many discs
levels and this time of year the Queen's will be coming out so that's what you're
going to start to see and they're still raiding beehives and so on and again it
was just very easy this entire process from the time I showed up at this man's
driveway and found them first of all they were hard to spot because it was
dark out and I didn't want to use a flashlight but start-to-finish we're
talking ten minutes come in clip on bag them put a twist in
the top of the bag and zip tie that shut and then put that bag inside another bag
you don't have these in your car while they are chewing through the first bag
as it turned out it was thick enough they did not get through it and they did
not chew out even through the primary boundaries second
second baghouses it tide you want to be completely safe now by the time you
start to bag you want to do that fairly quick and just be ready to drop them
right in I'll leave a link of the video description for the bag and for those
who are interested in the cameras that I use I guess I will include a link to the
Sony rx100 that's it very simple and he was very pleased by the time they get up
and had their breakfast all they notice is that the nest was gone and his yard
is again safe for his granddaughter to ride her tricycle around so I hope you
enjoyed it keep an eye out this time of year often
again they start to build up their nests and they go really unnoticed and then
suddenly by the time they are reveal especially when fall comes and leaves
start falling off you'll see a large nest like this in trees thanks for
watching proceed with caution at very weekend