• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

I, for one, welcome our yellowjacket overlords

zakur

Illuminator
Z
Joined
Aug 3, 2001
Messages
3,264
Giant nests perplex experts

To the bafflement of insect experts, gigantic yellow jacket nests have started turning up in old barns, unoccupied houses, cars and underground cavities across the southern two-thirds of Alabama.

Specialists say it could be the result of a mild winter and drought conditions, or multiple queens forcing worker yellow jackets to enlarge their quarters so the queens will be in separate areas. But experts haven't determined exactly what's behind the surprisingly large nests.

Auburn University entomologists, who say they've never seen the nests so large, have been fielding calls about the huge nests from property owners from Dothan up to Sylacauga and over into west-central Alabama's Black Belt.

[...]

The largest nest Ray has inspected this year filled the interior of a weathered 1955 Chevrolet parked in a rural Elmore County barn. That nest was about the size of a tire in the rear floor seven weeks ago, but quickly spread to fill the entire vehicle, the property owner, Harry Coker, said. Four satellite nests around it have gotten into the eaves of the barn, about 300 yards from his home.
Click to expand...
 
I don't think there's enough Raid in existence that would make me go into that barn. There's not even enough Napalm. The picture in that article looks like it was a promo for a horror film.
 
More cuts and pastes from the article sited in the OP:

In previous years, a yellow jacket nest was no larger than a basketball, Ray said. It would contain about 3,000 workers and one queen. These gigantic nests may have as many as 100,000 workers and multiple queens.
Click to expand...
…

We're not really sure how this multiple queen thing works," Ray said. "It could be that the daughters of the original queen don't leave the nest or that the queens have developed some way to cooperate."
Ray examined a collected nest from Macon County to count the queens in it.

"We found 12 queens so far, so that's definitely a factor," Ray said Thursday.

Dr. Michael D. Goodisman, a biologist at Georgia Tech who has studied large nests in Australia, said he's heard of some large ones in Georgia and Florida, but not as big as those in Alabama.A 6-foot by 3-foot nest on a pond stump in Bulloch County, Ga., was featured July 12 on CNN.

"I'm not sure people know what triggers it," he said.
Click to expand...

I would think that such a radical change in behavior qualifies as evolution in action. I'm glad I don't live near any giant sized nests in NY, but this is pretty cool.
 
Forgive my ignorance - but is a yellowjacket the same as/similar to a wasp?

If so - WOW :eek:
 
wilks said:
Forgive my ignorance - but is a yellowjacket the same as/similar to a wasp?

If so - WOW :eek:
Click to expand...
Yes. Around here, there are three species: German Yellowjacket (Paravespula germanica), Eastern Yellowjacket (Paravespula maculifrons), and the Common Yellowjacket (Paravespula vulgaris).
 
Yellowjackets can have a particularly nasty dispositions in the fall and have been known to swarm, sting, and kill people who weren't allergic. You don't want to run over a nest in the fall when you're mowing (trust me). I've been stung 17 times by a single swarm, and was finding them in my clothes hours later trying to find a good spot to sting me. I don't even want to think about one of these super colonies.
 
ive been attacked by the buggers. in the SE US they are well known and feared to those who have been stung for three reasons. one, they nest (usually) in the ground, so it is easy to step on a nest and have an attack (this is what happened to me). two, they swarm and attack in large numbers (i had a couple dozen stings in under a minute- the time it took me to run inside like a banshee while several adults tried to sweep them off my back) and three, they don't lose their stingers and die like bees, they can sting multiple times (i am pretty sure on that last one, but not 100%)
they suck, i hate them. i have almost stepped on nests since then but i have managed to avoid it thus far. they arent killer bees, but they are awful.
 
Khonshu said:
Yellowjackets can have a particularly nasty dispositions in the fall and have been known to swarm, sting, and kill people who weren't allergic. You don't want to run over a nest in the fall when you're mowing (trust me). I've been stung 17 times by a single swarm, and was finding them in my clothes hours later trying to find a good spot to sting me. I don't even want to think about one of these super colonies.
Click to expand...

Heh, I did that to a wasps nest once. The next time I mowed the lawn I parked on top of it for about 10 minutes. They've never been back since.
 
I was running on an unfamiliar trail in the wooded, seldom-visited park, and suddenly got stung 4 times in about 30 seconds. I was wearing my pace recorder and heart monitor at the time. You should see the stats for the next quarter-mile...
 
I had what turned out to be a colony of German yellowjackets building a nest above my ceiling. Needless to say we had an exterminator there within half an hour of discovering it. :P He said they'd been chewing through the drywall for days (it had "turned to mush") and were on the verge of breaking through and swarming into our office. :eye-poppi

Anyway, I'm more worried about our new arachnid overlords.
 
Having grown up on a farm in Western Pennsaylvania, wasp or spider nests in the barn were common, but we also had yellow jacket nests under ground out in our hay fields. While helping with the seasonal bailing one of my sisters stepped right into a large nest and was bitten repeatedly. I don't think I had ever seen her run as fast before, or since that day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom