The weekend was beautiful here, sunny days and 80-degree weather made sure I got outside.
As I admired the new blossoms, I noticed yellow and black forms buzzing around, already convention pollen for the hive. Alerted to the proximity of bees I focused more on movement away from the flowers, and let my gaze center among the colse to structures. There I spotted the red wasps flying around.
No doubt finding for a cozy spot for their nest.
This early in spring the populations of bees and wasps aren't large, and you don't see so many of them normally, but now is a great time to begin your hunt for the hives and nests that, left alone, come to be the source of pain (and sometimes worse) in mid to late summer.
In my contact yellow jackets recite a bigger threat to our children. During my pest operate days I made a lot of bee, wasp, and hornet runs to schools. Most of those were for yellow jackets.
Once an elementary school called me to treat a playground where a group of kids, playing tag, happened onto a nest in the ground. As they ran colse to on top of the nest, the yellow jackets came boiling out like lava from an erupting volcano, and stung more than 20-children.
It's a bit early in the season for yellow jacket troubles though, and I haven't seen a great whole of them yet. What peeked my attentiveness this past weekend was the whole of Bumblebees that I saw. Seems there are an awful lot of them flying around, more than I thinkable, in April.
Bumblebees regularly leave us alone, but if you disturb their nest they'll come after you mad and mean. Each of these guys have the quality to sting you numerous times while getting revenge on you for trespassing on its territory. As a kid myself, I watched one Bumblebee sting my brother on the back as he jumped from a hayloft into a pile of straw on the barn floor below. When I got down to him I counted seven welts from that one bee.
Another time I had a brush pile left over from winter that I hadn't cleaned away. One day as I mowed close to the pile, I felt a sting on my ankle. It wasn't very painful, and I thought at first it was a yellow jacket, but when I looked there was a small welt. Closer inspection alerted me that a swarm of baby Bumblebees hovered colse to the brush. I got hit three more times before I ultimately did something about getting that brush pile out of there.
If you see a growing population of Bumblebees in you area you'll want to search the nest and eliminate it before your kids are stung.
The best way to start medicine for stinging insects is from a distance. Dust works well, but often you must get too close to the nest when applying dust.
I like a bee, wasp, and hornet spray that shoots 12-feet or more as a first application. Get the ones flying colse to the nest with the spray then, when it's safe, squirt dust into the nest.
That should take care of them.
The Spring Pest Invasion Started - Is it Time to Start Protecting Your Kids From Bees and Wasps?