Killing Yellow-Jackets

When I returned to The Homestead after a couple of weeks in Colorado, I was dismayed to find an active and growing yellow-jacket nest inside the corner of the shed.  Now, I know that some people have a live and let live attitude about yellow-jackets.  But not me.  I don't want 'em anywhere around me or my family.  The problem is that once they are well established, it is hard to get rid of them without getting stung.  So, I thought about it all day, and finally came up with a brilliant solution:  An armored attack.

The way the nest was positioned in the shed door, I could drive the car so that the front passenger window was almost directly underneath it.  So, I waited until dusk, and then got in the car with a can of bee spray.  I started the car, and drove it over to within five or six feet of the nest.  I put the car in park, left it running, climbed into the passenger seat, and opened the spray can.  From where I was sitting I had a perfect view up into the nest.  With my left hand on the power window button, and my right hand on the spray trigger, I was ready.  I opened the window about one inch, stuck the spray nozzle through it, and fired.  Direct hit.  I drenched the nest with a full blast of bee spray for about two seconds, withdrew the nozzle, and closed the car window.  I climbed back into the driver's seat, pulled the car away, parked it, and went into the house for the night.  Victory.  With 3000 lbs of steel, gasoline refined in Texas, and a can of toxic aerosol, I had outsmarted and overcome several dozen yellow-jackets.

Coincidentally, I had a chance to see this done another way when I was out walking in the woods yesterday.  Granted it was just one yellow-jacket, not a nest of them, but I watched a black widow make short work of a large hornet that got too close to her nest.  I had expected an epic battle of biting and stinging, and I wondered which of them had the more potent venom, but, instead, the black widow simply tangled the yellow-jacket into submission.  Where he was caught, she was free to move, so she simply wound him around and around with her web until he was totally immobilized.  Then she collected the bundle and carried it down into her larder.  In contrast to my mechanized attack, the whole operation was simple and silent.  There must be a lesson here about harmonizing the ways of man with the ways of nature, but I don't know what it is:  Today I will be going to Walmart to buy another can of bee spray.