Engineering Pest Dispatch (was:Re: [BC] Engineering feats of note)

[Lamar Owen]

On Friday 20 May 2005 20:10, Ron Castro wrote:
> You sound like you need a case of Wasp & Hornet spray!  I can't say I've
> been stung by any of them, and I hope don't anytime soon...

The scary part is that I have seen some of the B&W baldface hornets shrug off 
the RAID hornet spray like it was water.  Ended up getting them with some 
freeze spray (chewing gum remover) with a long-reach straw.  At night, of 
course, with red lights instead of white (the white will annoy them, and in 
order to get close enough to do the freeze spray you must not annoy them!).  
The only time to effectively kill them is when the queen is building the 
nest; afterwards it can become downright dangerous.

I have purchased some commercial hornet spray in the past that killed 
everything sprayed with it (including a couple of mice and a large rat (I 
used spray masks when using it, just like the directions on the can said)), 
but that stuff isn't sold anymore (joining the really effective pesticides 
like chlorodane and diazinon, neither of which is available anymore.  The 
strongest thing you can buy these days is malathion, and it's probably on the 
endangered pesticide list by now; unfortunately malathion doesn't work really 
well on the ants around here).

I have seen many bumblebees and wood borers (looks like a larger bumblebee, 
but eats wood like a carpenter ant) shrug off all manners of wasp and hornet 
spray.  Wood borers are best killed with a BB gun (catch them while they're 
tunnelling, and drive a BB through them in the tunnel).  The cheap Red Ryder 
type of spring-piston is the safest for this activity, but still wear 
ANSI-rated safety glasses when doing this; I do.  Get the end of the barrel 
as close as possible, and watch for ricochet.

To knock down a wasp or bee that is, say, in your office at work (I have 
killed three queen yellow jackets this week here, one of which flew out of 
the A/C vent into my office, and the other two were in the library inside the 
building!) some stiff hairspray or similar can knock them down long enough 
for you to step on them.  I have killed a yellowjacket with hairspray, but 
the amount needed is quite large.  Ammonia-base glass cleaner also works as 
an effective knockdown, particularly with bumblebees.  However, I try not to 
kill bumblebees since they cross-pollenate, unless it's inside the house and 
mad.  And I leave honeybees alone completely; they're too useful.  Honeybees 
can be smoked out, and if a swarm comes you can call a beekeeper who might 
even pay you to get the swarm.  But wood borers are way too destructive to 
leave alone, and, at least around here, there are so many yellowjackets and 
baldface hornets that getting rid of the ones near the house, transmitter 
site, etc, isn't going to even knock a dent into their population.

What we have to watch out for around here are the copperheads and rattlesnakes 
more than anything else.  I came across a nice large copperhead one day here 
in a doorway, and used a brass headed hammer to dispatch.  There's enough 
blacksnakes and king snakes around here to handle the rats and mice; and 
while copperhead bites aren't usually too dangerous (unlike a rattlesnake, 
which can be deadly) it's better safe than sorry.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu