Sketch
Sector Admin
Posts: 2,939 | Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 10:14 AM
Giant nests perplex experts
By Garry Mitchell
The Associated Press
MOBILE -- 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.
At one site in Barbour County, the nest was as large as a Volkswagen Beetle, said Andy McLean, an Orkin pesticide service manager in Dothan who helped remove it from an abandoned barn about a month ago.
"It was one of the largest ones we've seen," McLean said.
Attached to two walls and under the slab, the nest had to be removed in sections, McLean said.
Entomologist Dr. Charles Ray at the Alabama Cooperative Extension System in Auburn said he's aware of about 16 of what he described as "super-sized" nests in south Alabama.
Ray said he's seen 10 of them and cautioned people about going near them because of the yellow jacket's painful sting.
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.
"I'm kind of afraid for the grandkids. I had to sneak down there at dark and get my tractor out of the barn," Coker said. "It's been a disruption."
Coker said he may wait until a winter freeze to try to remove the nest.
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.
Without a cold winter to kill them this year, the yellow jackets continued feeding in January and February -- and layering their nests made of paper, not wax. They typically are built in shallow underground cavities.
Yellow jackets, often confused with bees, may visit flowers for sugar, but unlike bees, yellow jackets are carnivorous, eating insects, carrion and picnic food, according to scientists.
"They were able to find food to colony through the winter," Ray said in a telephone interview.
He investigated a nest near Pineapple, measuring about 5 feet by 4 feet, that was coming out of the ground on a roadside. A southwest Pike County house in Goshen had a giant nest spreading into its roof.
Goshen Mayor G. Malon Johnson said he consulted Ray in removing it because he was concerned that children playing nearby could be attacked.
A colony has a maximum size in early July and August. The hot, dry conditions could force the yellow jackets out of ground nests.
"Normally it starts declining in the fall," Ray said.
He said the "super colonies" appear to have many queens.
"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
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_bezel/
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DaveTRON
User
Posts: 5,314 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 10:57 AM
There ain't nuthin' like the south! Yeehaw!order abortion pill abortion pill buy online where to buy abortion pill
DaveTRON
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Boingo_Buzzard
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 11:07 AM
Looks like a science fiction movie. Next we'll find someone mummified inside one of those things....
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Sketch
Sector Admin
Posts: 2,939 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 11:20 AM
Doesn't this just make you want to go play outside? 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_bezel/
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Boingo_Buzzard
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 11:28 AM
Sketch Wrote oesn't this just make you want to go play outside? |
For the past two years I have had bees. It's a somewhat common occurrence here in the southwest... plus I live next to a good-sized nursery, so during spring, they're everywhere.
Sucks... because every time it's like $100 to remove them.
I also had a wasp nest in the garage this year, but they abandoned it pretty quickly, (Thank God)
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TimothyC
User
Posts: 4 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 11:42 AM
| Sketch Wrote:[bwho 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. |
I lived 30 minutes south of Dothan for 5 years or so. Good to see the it's in the news for something as exciting as this  .
-T
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TheJediUnit
User
Posts: 474 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 2:04 PM
Ugh, the thought makes my stomach ache. Seriously! I've been stung so many times by those bedamned yellow jackets as a child I have nearly a conditioned irrational hatred of them. No other stinging insect comes close to me, even poisonous snakes.
If I had the capacity to cause the immediate extinction of this useless outdoors pest, I'd do it.abortion pills online abortion pill online purchase cytotec abortion
"Having is not as pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
--Spock
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TronFAQ
Sector Admin
Posts: 4,467 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 5:11 PM
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Sketch
Sector Admin
Posts: 2,939 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 5:14 PM
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_bezel/
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Hikaru.EXE
User
Posts: 1,005 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Thursday, July, 20, 2006 5:33 PM
[edit for car]: You could get a nice wasp bonfire off that thing. (HUGE!!!)
Here is my effective way of killing bee and wasp nest. 
Be REALLY careful!!!!
Bees:
1. Fashion a long pole with a hook on the end.
2. Grab a cardboard box relative to the size of the hive.
3. Fill with newspaper.
4. construct a contraption to automatically close the box when weight is added.
5. Cover your entire body with clothing (even head)
6. Make sure there are no openings.
7. Use pole to detach hive and place in box. (box should close)
8. light inside of box with match.
9 hive should melt, bees should burn, and you get free honey!!!
wasps:
1. Same thing as bees, only you don't get honey. 
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TheJediUnit
User
Posts: 474 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Friday, July, 21, 2006 8:41 AM
Eh, I witnessed my brother dispense with a 2" yellowjacket nest (with about 15 wasps) with nothing more than a jumbo can of hairspray and a lighter.
I'm dead serious.
Every single wasp was dead before it hit the ground. Just a well-aimed flash, whoosh, and tap-tap-tap-tap... they were instantly, collectively dead.
He says he always takes care of them that way. Well, I saw with my own eyes that with the right touch, it works just fine. Mind you, I don't think it would work against one of the monsters featured in this article though.abortion pills online abortion pill online purchase cytotec abortion
"Having is not as pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
--Spock
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Traahn
User
Posts: 3,301 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Friday, July, 21, 2006 11:35 AM
That's just greeeeat...
PS: I hate how online news pics are so small. Why can't there be an option to click the picture of the yellow jackets nest to see a a high-resolution large image of it?order abortion pill abortion pill buy online where to buy abortion pill
    
I'm getting out of here right now, and you guys are invited.   -----^
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Boingo_Buzzard
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Friday, July, 21, 2006 5:44 PM
We should get Tron to get rid of 'em!!
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Traahn
User
Posts: 3,301 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Friday, July, 21, 2006 5:46 PM
ROFL! Good one, Boingo!  Derezz those yellow jackets!
I'm getting out of here right now, and you guys are invited. -----^
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TheJediUnit
User
Posts: 474 | Re: Giant nests perplex experts
on Friday, July, 21, 2006 10:39 PM
Damn gridbugs!abortion pills online abortion questions cytotec abortion
"Having is not as pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
--Spock
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