The Buzz Newsletter

January 2007

 

 

Page 8

The Empty Super …
Diary of a Hopeful Hobbyist
by Eugene Makovec

Originally printed in the November 2006 Missouri State Beekeepers Association Newsletter. www.mostatebeekeepers.org

A hard-earned hornet’s nest.
It was my first year keeping bees. I’d gotten a late start (a threepound package in early June), managed to kill my queen (another story entirely) and had little hope of getting any honey for my efforts. Nevertheless, I was happy and proud to be a beekeeper. I’d only been stung a couple of times, and was feeling cocky.

So when a lady named Teresa approached me about getting rid of a hornet’s nest in her yard I quickly obliged. I’d never met Teresa, but she cleaned offices for my father-in-law and he’d told her I was a beekeeper. (Becoming a beekeeper is like buying a pickup truck – soon everyone wants you to help them move.) And besides, I’d always wanted one of those nests.

I made a quick visit to Teresa’s house to check it out, and went to a bee club meeting the following evening to ask for guidance. My primary concern was preservation of the nest. I received two recommendations:

? Suit up well: Wear the full bee suit, plus jeans and a long-sleeved shirt underneath. Hornets have industrial-strength stingers, and they pack a wallop.

? As for removing the nest, it’s pretty simple: Just go out at night, snip the branch on both sides, drop the whole nest into a plastic bag and tie it tight. After a night in the deep freeze, shake the dead critters out on the ground and the nest is yours.

I went by Teresa’s house on a Sunday evening. The nest was football- shaped but beach ball-sized. It hung in a bush along the driveway, about five feet off the ground and 15 feet from the house. It was pretty dark in that part of the yard, though there was a small light on the house by the side door.

I suited up as advised, grabbed my trash bag and pruning shears and approached the target. I shined a flashlight on the nest, and one of its denizens immediately crawled out to investigate. Well, they’re not sleeping, I thought.

I hated to arouse them further, but I was going to need light to see what I was doing. After a minute or two, I was able to prop the flashlight in the grass in such a way that it illuminated the nest. I picked up the shears and went to work.

My initial surveillance had not been thorough. I soon found that there were about a dozen branches routed through the nest. It took several minutes and quite a bit of jostling to snip them all, and by that time I was pretty well surrounded by curious hornets. I say curious because, amazingly enough, they did not seem aggressive. Not that the sight and sound of them wasn’t a little unnerving – I was used to the hum of honeybees, but this tone was of a deeper, more ominous nature.

I finally extricated the huge nest from the bush and, with some further effort, managed to stuff it, branch amputees and all, into the trash bag and seal it. I turned to head for the car and saw scores of disoriented hornets circling the light on the house. I wondered if there were any left in the nest.

At home, I dropped the nest into my basement chest freezer, and didn’t give it another thought until about 2:00 a.m. Tuesday. I was working the night shift at the time, and when I arrived home I pulled the bag out of the freezer and hauled it outside. After shaking a few dozen frozen hornets out onto the grass, I dropped my prize nest back into the bag, set it just inside the front door, and went to bed.

At about 9:00 a.m., I awoke to a shriek from my wife. Even in my groggy state, I immediately knew what it was about. I also knew that it was not so much a cry for help as a cry of – well, let’s just say I was the one who was going to need help. My wife had not been thrilled about the whole bee thing to begin with, and the idea that I would bring stinging insects into the house (even if I had every reason to believe they were dead) -- well, that was just unacceptable.

After a brief, futile attempt to explain myself, I stalked and killed the revivified varmint, then hauled the nest back outside. Upon opening the bag, I was greeted by two more live hornets, who buzzed lazily away. I shook the nest for a few seconds and out fell a handful of dead ones, on top of what looked like the majority of those I’d shaken out the previous night. I still wonder why some survived the zero-degree temps while the rest perished.

As for the original job, Teresa called a couple of days later to say that the hornets were busy building another nest in a neighboring bush. I went back that night, this time stopping off at the hardware store for some wasp spray. (The heck with the nest — I was getting tired of this.)

The new nest was already about the size of a football, but rounder. I didn’t mess around this time. No need to suit up — I just soaked it down with wasp killer, clipped the branches and stuffed it into a bag, this time for trash.

Teresa was very appreciative. She gave me a whole $5.00, which marked the beginning of a lucrative career in pest removal. Minus the cost of the wasp spray, and not counting gas, I cleared almost 75 cents. The trash bags I was able to reuse. And as for my time — well, I’ve learned in the 10 years since that I’m much better off
not keeping track.