The Backyard Science group regularly features the Daily Bucket. We hope you will add your own observations of the world around you. Sunflower problems? Spots on your pears? Please share your comments. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds, and more are all worthy additions to the Bucket. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, your location. Your impressions will yield knowledge of the life cycles that reveal themselves all around us.
Last year, yellow jackets (probably the Vespula species) dug an underground city the size of Houston on the edge of my vegetable garden. They stung me a half-dozen times when I tried to weed around a nearby volunteer gladiola. It was painful and the sting wounds swelled up as if poisoned
When we tried to eat dinner outside, the scouts would aggressively buzz the table, landing on the cooked salmon and the edge of the wine glasses. We would flee back indoors.
I know that yellow jackets (aka wasps) also prey on bad bugs, so I deeply regretted eradicating that underground nest. But I need the YJs to give us space around the heavily-used portions of our yard.
Then Ms. 6 discovered an amazing, non-toxic, benign solution:
This is a fake wasps' nest made of paper and wire. The theory is that wandering wasps will see it, think to themselves "holy moly, there's already a big colony established here, we'd better skedaddle!" And the wasps would move on.
I put up one near the site of last year's underground colony, and another near my backyard pond where we'd like to dine.
This year, we only saw a single YJ buzzing around the pond sometimes, probably grabbing a little mud from a pond plant pot. We dared to think: Success!
Ha.
Instead, the yellowjackets outsmarted me, and built this hive near our the front door, where I had neglected to post fake hives. Dolichovespula species are probably responsible, since they typically build aerial nests. Wiki states there could be thousands of YJs inside such a hive, at peak.
Next year, I'm stringing up fake hives all around the house, like strings of Xmas lights. That'll stop them.
Now it's your turn to tell us about the goings-on in your area.
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.