Useless Conversation

[Sky]

I worked road construction for my first few years as an adult. One summer I got rotated to a crew that sucked and didn't get much work, so I volunteered to work at the quarry that summer. Tons of really interesting things to do, but also a lot of downtime where the old timers would come up with horrible jobs to see if they could get me to quit. Never did, not even painting a metal roof on a 30' high garage with aluminum paint mid-summer high 90s (I just dressed like a beduin and stayed hydrated).

Anyway, one job was to take out the various wasps and other stingy bastards that inhabited the entire compound of buildings around the quarry and crushers. So taking out the nests around the house isn't a big deal for me, my general method is to knock down the nest and run :) A bit of wasp spray if they don't abandon it.

I've got one that's bigger than a melon already outside an unused window, might let that one stay so they don't relocate somewhere tougher to remove. I also tend to let them nest on the backside of the shed for the same reason.

[rattran]

I like the bees and leave them alone, but wasps especially yellow jackets needed to get deaded. Scooping the whole nest into a 50 gallon drum size trash can works best, and just live through the stings.

Or if you're allergic, just pay some other poor bastard to do it.

[Yegolev]

I'm not allergic but I'm paying someone else to do yellowjacket duty.  I also don't care if you try to make it look manly to let insects sting you.  Fook dat sheet.

[Rasix]

I've got one that's bigger than a melon already outside an unused window, might let that one stay so they don't relocate somewhere tougher to remove. I also tend to let them nest on the backside of the shed for the same reason.

Edit by Trippy: giant spider hebbie-jebbies alert

[WayAbvPar]

Tech found a total of 4 goddamned nests. Sprayed the shit out of everything, and got stung once for her trouble. Quarterly contract covers everything besides termites and shit like raccoons- mice, rats, spiders, ants, wasps, hornets, etc. Pretty decent deal, really.

[Sky]

Had a yellowjacket nest in the ground last year. Got a good laugh out of myself when I ran it over with the lawn mower and they swarmed out. I got away without a sting, but they swarmed the mower for a bit.

Speaking of varmints in general, a certain bunny is about to get trapped. She went for my pepper plants, I doubt any will make it. I had previously felt bad because I wounded her baby with a rake, nursed it for a couple hours until it was stable and put it back where she could find it and they reconnected...the next day the hawk ate it. Ah, well. I do miss that hawk.

[Yegolev]

Hakuna matata.

[Furiously]

I wish there was a coyote spray. Have three groups of them living around my house.

[Mandella]

I like the bees and leave them alone, but wasps especially yellow jackets needed to get deaded. Scooping the whole nest into a 50 gallon drum size trash can works best, and just live through the stings.

Or if you're allergic, just pay some other poor bastard to do it.

Yellow jackets are about the only wasp I can't coexist with. They are just too territorial. But they are relatively easy to exterminate.

Wait until dusk when they retreat back inside their underground nest and settle down for the night. Fill up a coke bottle with gasoline. Calmly walk up to the nest entrance and upend the bottle into the hole, making sure to plug the hole soundly. Run away in case they have a second exit (they usually don't).

Don't be insane and light the gas. It's not necessary. All bugs should be dead by morning.

I actually like wasps. Bees get all the attention, but wasps are pretty interesting too.

[Strazos]

Why use gas - shouldn't water accomplish the same thing by drowning them, or is it the fumes that gets them?

[Teleku]

I'm assuming the fumes, since I doubt a coke bottle of water is enough.

[Ironwood]

I've had 3 big wasps nests in and around my house and taking care of them was always fun.  Especially burning the nests.  I have no idea why you'd pay someone else to do that.  Except for allergies, obviously, since no-one really wants to die.

[Khaldun]

Yellowjackets, yeah, they have to go regardless. Paper wasps and such as long as the next isn't right in where people walk around a lot you can just let them wait out the season.

[Paelos]

We hate Yellowjackets in Georgia for a lot of reasons.

[Signe]

I don't really want to make you feel bad, Sky, but I'll give it a go anyway.  Rabbit don't reject their young even if you touch them.  The reason the hawk ate the baby was because YOU touched it or moved it or whatever and it saw it, not because it smelled it.  Baby bunnies don't have any scent of their own but if you touch them, they'll carry your scent.  The hawk was probably thinking it got really lucky and was eating you.  You should be feeling guilty and frightened, but I know you don't.  You fucking like nature for some bizarre reason! 

(secretly, I do, too.)

[Yegolev]

We hate Yellowjackets in Georgia for a lot of reasons.

I wish I could spray for bulldogs.

[WayAbvPar]

I've had 3 big wasps nests in and around my house and taking care of them was always fun.  Especially burning the nests.  I have no idea why you'd pay someone else to do that.  Except for allergies, obviously, since no-one really wants to die.

The place under the eaves where the bees hornets wasps flying stingy bastards were coming and going is a good 20-25 feet off the ground on either side of my split level house. I am not overly eager to crawl up a ladder that far, especially when I might have to move quickly to avoid being stung. And FUCK crawling around in the attic itself. It is like 150 degrees up there. I feel I got good value for my money.

Didn't hear or see any activity this morning, so hopefully the fuckers are dead. The place I was stung is STILL sore. Been a while since I was stung. More irritating than anything, but it has impressive staying power.

And Furiously- I think the stuff to spray for coyotes is .223 rounds  

[Ironwood]

Fair enough.  I'm probably maladjusted on this one...

[WayAbvPar]

We had a bald faced hornet nest in the rhododendron right outside our front door a couple of years ago. I took great pleasure in blowing it apart with a blast of wasp killer. So I have known the smug satisfaction of wiping them out 'by hand' as well 

I am pretty happy with the results so far, and with the ongoing protection from other pests. I will give them a glowing Yelp review once I am certain everything that should be is dead.

[HaemishM]

Amazingly, despite living in wasp hell and growing up in the boonies, I have never been stung by wasp, bee, hornet or yellowjacket. True story.

[Signe]

We've had wasp and hornet nests from time to time.  I don't remember ever having to do anything about them, though.  I love bumblebees!  When I was a sprog, I would catch them and hold them in my fingers and chase my cousin Antimo.  He was afraid of everything!  EVERYTHING.

[Rasix]

Amazingly, despite living in wasp hell and growing up in the boonies, I have never been stung by wasp, bee, hornet or yellowjacket. True story.

I've never been stung by a wasp either, but it's mostly due to me running away from them like Brave Sir Robin when they get too close. I fondly remember a swimming pool at camp, where I promptly noped the fuck out due every square foot containing at least one wasp.

Bees don't bother me at much. Well, swarms do. That shit's all Africanized, and I'd rather not die. I was stung once as a child due to someone tossing one down my shirt.  

[Lantyssa]

Bee murderer!

I've been stung by just about everything.  They all suck because I'm highly allergic to insects.  (Not anaphylactic shock levels of allergic, quite thankfully.)  Wasps are the worst though.

[Sky]

I don't really want to make you feel bad, Sky, but I'll give it a go anyway.  Rabbit don't reject their young even if you touch them.  The reason the hawk ate the baby was because YOU touched it or moved it or whatever and it saw it, not because it smelled it.  Baby bunnies don't have any scent of their own but if you touch them, they'll carry your scent.  The hawk was probably thinking it got really lucky and was eating you.  You should be feeling guilty and frightened, but I know you don't.  You fucking like nature for some bizarre reason! 

(secretly, I do, too.)

No, it was tucked in with the parents behind my shed as night fell. I found the viscera in the open part of the lawn. My guess is the parents went out in the morning and the injured baby couldn't keep up. For a couple years (haven't seen them this year) we had a hawk who raised two fledglings living in the trees behind my house. My dippy neighbors hated them because they talk to each other unquietly, but I enjoyed a couple years of zero varmints in the yard. Anyway, the viscera pile was in a spot I've seen them swoop and get squirrels.

I miss the fox family, too. Another dippy neighbor was trying to trap them (and he got momma skunk instead...and I'm fine with her, she doesn't dig up the yard too much and keeps to herself).

Mostly I don't like anything that fucks with my house or garden. And I really like anything that eats those that do.

[01101010]

Bee murderer!

I've been stung by just about everything.  They all suck because I'm highly allergic to insects.  (Not anaphylactic shock levels of allergic, quite thankfully.)  Wasps are the worst though.

Horseflies. Those things are the worst ever. EVER.

[Sky]

Deer flies are bad. Black flies are the worst.

I chuckle when the fiancee complains about the skeeters. We used to have a family camp deep in the Adirondacks. I know biting insects.

[MisterNoisy]

Deer flies are bad. Black flies are the worst.

I chuckle when the fiancee complains about the skeeters. We used to have a family camp deep in the Adirondacks. I know biting insects.

FUCK deer flies.  Had one of em bite me during a shrimp boil last year, and holy fuck that hurt.  Wasp stings may as well be mosquito bites by comparison.

[Khaldun]

Deer flies and blackflies are indeed much much much fucking worse than anything else. About 20 years ago, my wife and I were driving through upstate New York once in June on our way to Toronto and I had read that there was a medium-sized creek nearby that was great for hiking and fishing. Unfortunately I hadn't read the fine print about blackflies and I didn't grow up out on the East Coast. We started down the trail, me with my fishing pole and tackle, hey, beautiful woods and...

OUCH. What was that.

OUCH FUCK. Like you just wandered into a torture facility and invisible Nazis were burning you with hot cigarettes.

FUCK OUCH FUCCCCCCCK. She grew up out here but hadn't really gone into the deep north at this point in the year, so it was new to her.

We turn around. About a half-mile of that shit.

Also, there's some kind of horsefly in this world that would justify the use of tactical nuclear weapons, in my view. I've only been bitten by them occasionally but they are awful--you can feel them taking a chunk of your flesh out.

[Abagadro]

Actual statement just uttered by my wife: "I'd like to go see Ant-Man but I hate ants so much right now I can't bring myself to do it."

[Selby]

Horse flies were causing my son major grief the other day at the pool.  Lots of screaming and crying about how I needed to kill it before it bit him (he's 7, almost 8 and afraid of everything).  I told him I wasn't going to kill it until it had actually bit any of us.  Having been stung by a wasp AND bitten by a black widow I know what creepy crawly things can do.

The wasps and I are having a battle right now over my garage - they like the cars stored in it that provide free nest and board and I don't tolerate freeloaders.  I'm still finding the little critters everywhere and spraying everything down.  It's been so hot and humid this summer that everything is growing.

I fought the carpenter bee fight this year.  Those bastards like to swipe and dive bomb you but apparently are just putting up an image and rarely bite\sting.  I still killed so many of them...  My coworker says I need to make the clear redneck bee traps so I can watch them die in the jar as I go to work every morning, leaving the pile of bee corpses as a warning to the rest.

As a result of the flying insect brigades this year I declared a truce with the spiders.  The orb weavers can make the biggest webs they want and catch everything they can (and have been).

[rattran]

I drove hell and gone out to the middle of nowhere Colorado to look at 3.3 acres with a cabin. A rough cabin. A VERY rough cabin. Not worth the $20k they're asking, but as we sat around having a picnic lunch a hawk started calling over and over, then scared up some small birds. Worth the drive just for that.

Making a wrong turn on the way home and driving for hours on dirt tracks through the Pike National Forest was cool too, if a bit nerve wracking.

[Khaldun]

We wrong-turned once on a small dirt road in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in Virginia onto what I think was a very very old and long-unused logging road. I was thinking, as the road curved around and twisted and turned and went up and up, this is not going where I expected and then oh shit it terminated very suddenly after climbing pretty steeply up a hill. As in, oh the end of the road is a literal cliff and there's no shoulder and there's a steep hill  falling through dense woods on one side and a steep hill rising straight off the road on the other side. And as in, oh dear, this road isn't crumbling a bit on the left side of the car right now, is it. Oh. It is.

So I had to immediately reverse and try to go backwards down a road with no shoulder, wide enough for one car only, down a steep hill with turns and twists. At least the road stopped crumbling once I got away from the end of it.

[Yegolev]

Actual statement just uttered by my wife: "I'd like to go see Ant-Man but I hate ants so much right now I can't bring myself to do it."

Tell her to wait for the sequel: Uncle-Woman.

[Rasix]

Show yourself out.

[Yegolev]

Tip your wait staff!