Bees

[padlin]

Cleaning the trailer the other day I saw a bee, or a number of them, making trips into the Air Conditioner so I'm guessing there is a nest being built. Has anyone dealt with such? I'm looking for how one removes the lid without getting stung and falling off the ladder.

[PGDriver]

Bob sounds like it’s time to hook up and take a drive down the highway, maybe even go camping, if your gone for a few days that should take care of them.

Cheers
Doug

[LynnB]

Duct tape your vacuum cleaner hose to a long 2 X 2 or PVC pipe and position the nozzle near their entrance. Turn the vacuum cleaner on and it will snarf them up as they come and go. Let it run for a half hour and then whack the top of the A/C a few times with a broom to flush out the stragglers. Once you have them all remove the A/C shroud and clean out all traces of the nest. This was my grandpa’s method of dealing with yellowjacket nests, and trust me, it works!

[wetzk]

When they built a nest in my workshop air conditioner I used a Raid Fumigator to wipe them out. You place it in water and it creates a fog that kills the insects but does not damage wiring and such.

[Ron in BC]

Depends if they're bees or wasps. Wasps I use any method to kill them. Bees, not so much. Easy enough to make a simple smoker. That calms them right down and would let you take the cover off without being stung. I've opened many hives without being stung. The only time I was ever stung was when one was trapped between my coveralls and started to get squashed. Actually it was right on a sprained ankle and it made it numb and much less painful.

Ron

[padlin]

Did just that earlier this week Doug, drove to PA for 4 nights. Went out to the trailer today and had a couple yellow jackets buzzing around. DOn't know if they are from the A/C as yet, that's why I want to pull the shroud. Ill have to sit out there for a while and watch. I like the vacuum idea if they are.

[oldstation]

I had mud dobbers,{like wasps} in my ac on our new 21ft. they like to make nest in the squirrel cage fan inside the ac unit, I knew they made a nest when I turned on the unit, it vibrated terrribly, the nest throws the fan out of balance causing the vibration, got on top and removed cover and took out the nest from the fan, now ac runs smooth as glass.

[Iowa Dave]

If they are paper wasps, yellow jackets or mud daubers, keep a can of WD40 handy as you remove the screws. It will knock them right down. Bald faced hornets, the black and yellow
guys will take the blast type can of hornet and wasp spray. Do the work when it is as cool as possible. Be careful, most of these guys belong to a good union and if you mess with one, you got them all.
Iowa ( Amalgamated meatcutters and butcher workmen of North America) Dave

[John in Santa Cruz]

we get two varieties of yellow jackets around here... the more common variety nest underground, in an old gopher hole. they are best 'nuked' by finding the entrance to their nest during the day, then well after dark, emptying a can of the foaming wasp killer directly into the hole.

the daubers that build their nests under eaves and such places, they are best nuked with the 'jet' wasp spray, again, wait for well after dark, then spray down the whole nest from 4-6 feet away.

[MyronL]

Bees and wasps in trailers must be a Massachusetts thing. When I drove up to north of Boston some years back, to pick up my neglected old '81 Burro from someone's back yard, there were seven clusters of hives in there.

[Jim Bennett]

I found this nest in the '76 Trillium I rebuilt.

[MyronL]

That's a party hive for sure.

[Chotch]

Originally Posted by LynnB

Duct tape your vacuum cleaner hose to a long 2 X 2 or PVC pipe and position the nozzle near their entrance. Turn the vacuum cleaner on and it will snarf them up as they come and go. Let it run for a half hour and then whack the top of the A/C a few times with a broom to flush out the stragglers. Once you have them all remove the A/C shroud and clean out all traces of the nest. This was my grandpa’s method of dealing with yellowjacket nests, and trust me, it works!

🤔 now what do you do with a vac full of really PO’d bees?

[Iowa Dave]

Before you start put a few mothballs in the canister where the bees will be deposited. Lights out in not very long. I used to remove those bald faced hornet nests from park trees and buildings. I worked at night, alone. I would get a box from the appliance store and drop the nest in the box but before I did I’d put a gassy rag in the box. After spraying the entry hole down with hornet spray there would still be some in the nest. Once the box lid was flipped closed, the fumes from the rag would knock them out. I had quite a collection of those nests. I did get stung on occasion. I have a great poem about messing with bees, I’ll post it, if I can find it.
Iowa Dave

[Vermilye]

When i worked on a private estate while in high school & the start of college, Cyanogas was the hornet remover of choice. I suspect it is no longer available!. It forms cyanide gas when mixed with the moisture in the air.

In any case, a couple of teaspoons of the powder in a coffee can on the end of a 12' stick. Easy for ground hornets; just pour it in the opening. Scary with tree nests - you held the can over the opening of the nest; the hornets flew out & at you, but if you held your ground, they died before they reached you. If you chickened out and ran, it was all over!

Surprised that the manager of the estate gave it to us kids to use, but I suspect he didn't want to mess with the hornets.

[Iowa Dave]

Wow, I could have used that stuff a few times. What a great topic over a few beers, Hornet battles I have fought and won (or lost), or how I blew the corner boards off of a museum site farmhouse.
Iowa Dave

[CADreamin]

Now what do you do with a vac full of really PO’d bees?

I was wondering the same thing ....

[wetzk]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

Before you start put a few mothballs in the canister where the bees will be deposited. Lights out in not very long. I used to remove those bald faced hornet nests from park trees and buildings. I worked at night, alone. I would get a box from the appliance store and drop the nest in the box but before I did I’d put a gassy rag in the box. After spraying the entry hole down with hornet spray there would still be some in the nest. Once the box lid was flipped closed, the fumes from the rag would knock them out. I had quite a collection of those nests. I did get stung on occasion. I have a great poem about messing with bees, I’ll post it, if I can find it.
Iowa Dave

When I was a lot younger a buddy and I discovered that we could make money selling hornet nest. I'm talking about the big ones you find up in the trees sometimes. The trick to them is night, as little movement as possible and a thick large plastic bag.

Usually I would do it as I was lighter and not afraid of heights so I would climb up and slowly work my way out to the nest. Often they were over water or fairly high up. I would carefully without disturbing the guards lower the bag down one side and when ready quickly pull it up and over trying to eliminate any paths to freedom and tied it shut.

Inside was a rag sprayed with starting ether which would quickly calm them down. Then I would if possible cut the end of the branch off and the other side and lower the nest to the ground. Nest with the branch were worth more so I always tried to do that. After we had them down we would stuff a rag soaked in formaldehyde in and wait a week. Then air it a few days then place the nest by a large ants nest to clean it out.

We could make $15 or more dollars for a huge nest which was a lot more than the dime each we could make chasing down land crabs and selling them to the migrants in Florida city. I remember the little compounds some of them had full of the crabs. They would feed them corn meal to sweeten them up.

Either beat wandering the roadsides trying to find soda bottles to redeem.
Just wish there had been lots of the nest.

[Iowa Dave]

Any way to make a buck was our motto. Bounties on gophers, unloading a truckload of watermelons. Hand spading gardens, shoveling snow. Our sales pitch to old folks in snow shoveling was “Your money or your life, your choice”. Worked sometimes. The 50s were a great time to be a kid. Scrap copper, scrap iron and disgarded railroad track plates packed home for miles with the trusty Schwinn. I feel sorry for kids today.
Iowa Dave

[Ron in BC]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

I feel sorry for kids today.
Iowa Dave

Yup, and they'll never know the fun of pin-setting. Nothing like having to leap out of the way because some bozo thought that it'd be fun to take out the pin-setter.

Ron