@&##$% wasps

[K6IC]

And,  for the children,  like me,  among us,  there is always the trigger spray bottle filled with denatured alcohol (or 70-90% isopropanol),  plus a ciragette llighter.  When it is SAFE,  this will take down any hymenopteran I've found.  Just light the 'pilot light' first, hold the lighter just below and an inch or so below nozzle end and pull the trigger.  Best when the spray is adjusted more toward the stream end of things.  What fun !
YMMV,  be careful,  do not do this at home  and so on ...   GL  Vic

[K6IC]

Diverging even farther from the topic,

At the remote QTH there are a  number of different wasps.  The most unique,  to me,  is the Tarantula hawk.  These things are black with brilliant orange wings,  and by far the largest wasp I've ever seen.  About 2.5 inches long,  and seem to be just barely able to fly.  As one would expect,  they make a very low frequency BUZZing as they careen around looking for a T den:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_hawk

A great photo:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bugman123.com/Bugs/TarantulaHawk-large.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bugman123.com/Bugs/index.html&h=612&w=800&sz=128&tbnid=EmeXBbuK1jTp3M:&tbnh=109&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtarantula%2Bhawk&zoom=1&usg=__5d03qay5oxBkJhyvI9FJn17YiMk=&sa=X&ei=B4V1TL-nAYyksQOqqPigDQ&ved=0CCkQ9QEwAw

Vic

[k4kyv]

I read somewhere that the best way to get rid of carpenter bees is to hang a piece of fresh pine nearby, and drill several holes the same diameter as the ones they bore in the wood.  They claimed that the fresh pine would attract the bees and they wouldn't bother the house, and that if you can keep them out of your house, they are beneficial and you shouldn't kill them. They look like bumblebees but are much larger and not so bright yellow.

There is another kind of bee that I have seen sucking nectar around here for years, but don't know what it is.  It has the same yellow and black markings as a bumblebee, but it is long and slender, and hovers in the air like a humming bird as it goes from flower to flower.  I don't know if they sting or not, but have always left them alone.

I have not seen a single honey bee this whole summer.  Usually the flowers are buzzing with them.  My kids used to get stung going barefoot when they would step on a clover blossom that had a bee in it.

[WBear2GCR]

The current commercial "15ft spray" insecticide wasp killer cans are extremely effective. Scary so. Just wait until after dark, spray along their area. Tomorrow, dead. And for a long time to come they avoid the area. Dunno what it is doing to people, but I spray along the eaves once in the spring, done. All gone, all season. Maybe a second application, but not this year. Very few wasps at all.

Got tired of them getting into the place late in the season then crawling into bed with me and being pissed off, biting me. Grrrrr...

                        _-_-bear

[K5UJ]

You guys are starting to make me wonder why you all moved to the sticks.  I think I'll watch some reruns of Green Acres.   

[flintstone mop]

In this neck of the Whirl.......Philippines...I have seen very few bees,wasps, etc. I would think that the never-ending heat and humidity would encourage the dam things. But I guess there's so many other things messed here that the bees and wasps want to make people miserable elsewhere.
Fred

[KM1H]

Rob:

Hilltop

5 acres

4 towers from 60 to 180', Im planning one more.

Fantastic take off angle on any band, 360* negative horizon.

Hundreds of acres behind be for the Beverages and a friendly land owner.

Room to do whatever I want without nosy neighbors running to the town.

PRIVACY

Carl

[KM1H]

Had a large yellow jacket nest that took up residency in what I think was a mole hole.  Was running the lawn mower near by and there was enough activity that I took as a warning.  Found the hole.  Waited until sunset and mixed up a nice brew of ammonia and clorox and covered the hole with a bucket.  Yellow jackets gone.

Had a very similar situation here 4 years ago. Solution was to pour about 10 ounces of gasoline down the hole, tape a newspaper page to a 12' length of element tubing, apply lighter and place over hole from safe distance. End result the same, only thing missing was the marshmallows and the Lostprophets

Carl

[k4kyv]

You guys are starting to make me wonder why you all moved to the sticks.  I think I'll watch some reruns of Green Acres.   

The Americas are probably the most inhospitable land on earth for humans, since it was so recently inhabited relative to Africa, Asia and Europe, possibly only after the ice path appeared when the Bering Strait froze over during the most recent ice age. So, included in our incredibly rich biological  diversity, we have such jewels as poison ivy, unknown in the rest of the world, that humans uniquely never evolved to cope with. Not to mention other natural phenomena, like tornadoes, that are rare in parts of the world outside North America.

[K5UJ]

You guys are starting to make me wonder why you all moved to the sticks.  I think I'll watch some reruns of Green Acres.   

The Americas are probably the most inhospitable land on earth for humans, since it was so recently inhabited relative to Africa, Asia and Europe, possibly only after the ice path appeared when the Bering Strait froze over during the most recent ice age. So, included in our incredibly rich biological  diversity, we have such jewels as poison ivy, unknown in the rest of the world, that humans uniquely never evolved to cope with. Not to mention other natural phenomena, like tornadoes, that are rare in parts of the world outside North America.

From what I've heard the Australian outback isn't any country club either.  Plenty of nasties there.   

[k4kyv]

Probably for the same  reason.  That's also why their mammals look so weird.  Cut off from the rest of the world for aeons.

[KM1H]

Id think that North America is extremely hospitable, just ask all the illegals

Seriously tho our lower 48 plus Alaska and Canada has almost none of the native diseases, toxic flora, or venomous wild life associated with the tropics of NA, SA, and Africa. HIV and Ebola are native to Africa.  Our native problems are well known and generally avoidable. BTW Im not allergic to poison ivy, sumac or oak.

OTOH Australia leads the world in unfriendly fauna and flora.

I wish someone would develop a force field to cover from FL to CA to keep all the garbage out   Beam me up Scotty

[k4kyv]

I think the gov't ought to sponsor research to develop a fungus (maybe a genetically modified version of the one that wiped out the American Chesnut or maybe the Dutch Elm disease organism) that would attack poison ivy and poison oak and render those plants extinct and wipe them off the face of the earth, but that would be harmless to other plants.  Monsanto has developed genetically modified grains that are unaffected by Round-up, so that crops can be sprayed with weed killer, so such a project might be feasible.

That would be a much more useful and productive way to spend tax money than what they now waste each year trying to eradicate cannabis plants.

Total eradication of poison ivy should be a major public health issue.  85% of the population is allergic to it, and it costs over a billion dollars a year in medical treatment and  lost work time, not to mention the misery it causes. The toxin is really nasty stuff. It is practically non-biodegradable; vines and leaves that have been dead for decades will still produce a rash.  It has been estimated that only a few ounces of pure urushiol (the toxic oil in the plant) would be enough to produce a rash in every human on earth.  Humans are the only living creatures known to be sensitive to it, and it is native only to N. America. If you are allergic, you don't have to even come in contact with it. A dog or cat may brush up against a plant, and then leave the oil on humans.  Tools and shoes are a common source of contamination.

It is probably the most common weed that grows here.  Practically every square inch of unattended soil has poison ivy growing in it.  I noticed this summer on Cape Cod that it is everywhere up there too. You would have to wear a hazmat suit every time you step outside to make it through an entire summer here without at least one bout with the stuff.

[W1ATR]

Yeah ok. The government never screws up any projects.

If they want to help, maybe they can print up a flyer to show the sheltered and helpless what bees and poison ivy look like.

[k4kyv]

I think most people already know what poison ivy looks like. It's practically impossible to avoid it if you spend much time outdoors in a place that is infested with it like we are here.  The quality of life on the entire N American continent would be much improved if it were eradicated to extinction, and I believe that with present-day biotechnology that is well within the realm of possibility if someone were willing to do the research.  I would welcome that from anyone - Monsanto, the government, BP, Osama Bin Laden or the devil if any one of them were able and willing to produce it.

The forced extinction of poison ivy should become a public health and safety issue,  like the polio vaccine, smallpox eradication and traffic law enforcement.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

I have often felt the same way about the MOSQUITO.  No other insect has really irritated me to the point of Speciecide.

I was amazed to learn that cows EAT posion Ivy with no ill effects (how about the milk?? ) I wonder what purpose was served during the evolution of the plant that made it have that chemical in it's makeup?

We haven't had much luck eradicating bad things (KUDZU vine, Killer Bees, Formosan Termites)  Good things seem a lot easier to kill off for some reason.  It seems that the harder we try to kill something the more we affect something else. 

[k4kyv]

Actually, mosquitoes are said to be beneficial in the food chain despite their peskiness.  Wasps are beneficial too, in that they kill of other harmful insect pests and (maybe) ticks.

I don't think there is anything beneficial about poison ivy.  Birds eat the seeds and berries, but there are plenty of other plant species for them to munch on if poison ivy were to disappear.

I once read somewhere that there is no known evolutionary reason for the toxic oil.  Perhaps it serves to repair physical injuries to the plant.  The toxicity serves no known useful purpose to benefit the plant, since it only affects humans, and the effect is delayed. It just happened to get its start and evolve in a region on the planet where humans didn't appear until much later.

The same oil, in less potent form, is found in mangoes and cashew shells, and some exotic plant found in Japan.  Some people who are extremely allergic to poison ivy have a reaction to mangoes and cashews as well.

[WBear2GCR]

I appear to not be allergic to Poison Ivy.
Howerver I am allergic to fish.

Not a good trade off.

                  _-_-

[K1JJ]

When I was a JN, I got poison ivy so bad that I looked like a monster at times. The doctor then gave me a series of three shots in the springtime that gave me an immunity - just had minor bouts after that.  He claimed it was the ivy extract that was injected under the skin. It strange, but after he died, no other doctor or even skin doc knew what he used. One said it didn't exist.

The shots stung like all hell. Maybe it was a placebo, but it worked for me and haven't had ivy for years unless I actually rub it on aggressively. Before the shots, I would get it big-time off the pets or even without walking thru it...

T

[The Slab Bacon]

I had a friend that was terribly allergic to it when we were kids.

I remember the first day back to school in the 9th grade, he came in totally bandaged up and looked just like a mummy with just his eyes and mouth exposed.
I axed him "what the hell happened to you??" Expecting to hear some kind of horrific burn story, he told me that he had poison ivy over his entire body. He prolly should not have even been there, but his parents were so proud of his perfect attendance record for the previous few years.

come to find out that they had burned all of the vegetation off of a field near his house and it was full of poison ivy. The breeze had carried the oils from it in the smoke and got him good. He was a mess for quite a while to come. This was over 40 years ago and they didnt have the good steroids yet they have now.

I would not have wanted to be in his shoes!! Thank God, I have never been allergic to or caught that stuff, and I even crashed a motorcycle into a patch of it when I was a kid and never got it!!

[W9GT]

I have been one of the fortunate ones who is not allergic to poison ivy, however, I am apparently allergic to poison oak.  Although I never really had a bad reaction or outbreak from that stuff, it does cause some irritation.

What might be a concern to some of us entering our "old buzzard" years is that some people become allergic to things later in life that never bothered them before.  It apparently is not unusual to develop allegeries that never previously existed.  I hope I don't develop such an allergy...poison ivy  is all over around here.  It is very common and quite prolific on our property and the woods that are behind us.

I recall hearing about a magic cure for poison ivy that was used by linemen and cable guys working for the telephone company.  I don't remember the name of it, but apparently, it was something that you had to ask the pharmacist for....maybe not commonly available over the counter?

73,  Jack, W9GT

[NE4AM]

According to Ewell Gibbons (remember him?)  the native Americans would develop an immunity to poison ivy by eating one of the tiny leaves of the poison ivy as soon as they emerged in the spring, and successively eating larger leaves every couple days over time as they grew bigger.

I DO NOT want to try this.

[WA1GFZ]

Round-Up works great on PI for killing it

[Ed/KB1HYS]

I have also heard that various tribes would burn large quantities of the stuff, up wind of a village they were planning on making a raid on. A precursor to Tear Gas, but more like Mustard gas or some other blister agent.

Pretty nasty, I can't imagine what that would do to the INSIDE of your lungs.

[The Slab Bacon]

What might be a concern to some of us entering our "old buzzard" years is that some people become allergic to things later in life that never bothered them before.  It apparently is not unusual to develop allegeries that never previously existed.  

I found that happened to me! I'm still not allergic to poison ivy, but I have developed an allergy to Deet, or any of the bug repellent compounds containing it. It gives me a nasty rash that resembles leprosy!! And it takes months and months to go away. (and leaves scars too) Also, never before, but now some fabric softeners give me friggin hives!!
It sucks to get old!!  But.................. Old beats the hell out of being dead!!