Anybody know how to evict yellow jackets from compost heap?

[dreamshark]

Richard went out to turn over the compost yesterday, and guess what was living in it? Ouch. Fortunately he got away with only 3 stings, but he wasn't happy. Now he's trying to figure out what to do about it. The usual methods (e.g., pouring kerosene down the hole and setting it on fire) would result in destroying or poisoning the compost. He's wondering if soaking the pile with water would flood them out.

My suggestion is to wait for the first frost. But I think he was hoping to use some of the composted material before then. Any ideas?

Comments

[mle292.livejournal.com]

I like guppiecat's suggestion.

Some internet searching led me to a clever solution to shop vac the little buggers all up and then spray wasp killer into the shop vac.

I don't know how wise that is.

[carbonel]

Wouldn't it make more sense to (possibly as an additional step) spray wasp killer into the shop vac first?

[pameladean]

Either way, you then have wasp killer in your shop vac, which will exhaust it out for quite some time. Unless your shop vac is disposable, as mle292 says, not necessarily a wise step.

P.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

I think a major component of the effectiveness against flying insects is the airborne quality of the spray, but at worst, it would just waste a can of wasp killer.

I still wouldn't try it. I think the best case scenario involves cleaning a lot of dead bees out of a perfectly good shop vac.