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Hasta la vista, hornets!

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As you may know, we had a not-so-small hornet's nest in a tree in our backyard. On Sunday I called a couple of the national pest control chains, thinking they'd be best equipped to respond quickly. I left messages with both to call me, but as of Monday morning, none had done so. So I did a bit of searching, and found a local company, Pioneer Pest Management (based in Vancouver, Washington). I spoke to someone for about five minutes, and they called back an hour or so later and set up the removal for Tuesday. I never did hear back from one of the national chains, and the other actually called me back about 30 minutes ago. Too bad!

On Tuesday afternoon, Don from Pioneer arrived to deal with the hornet's nest. I cowered behind our patio door, opening it just enough to take some pictures of the process. I put them together in a small album that shows each step in the nest's removal--just click the first image and then use the slideshow controls to step through the rest. The captions on the larger image explain what's happening at each step.

He was here for about 40 minutes overall, and it cost $99--a bargain in my book when I saw everything he did to remove the nest. They also include a 30 day warranty, so if we have another nest crop up in that immediate area (meaning they somehow didn't get the queen), they'll come back and remove it for free. Sure, I probably could've done this myself...but there are some jobs I'm quite happy to leave to the experts!

4 thoughts on “Hasta la vista, hornets!”

  1. Don't like them stinging critters at all. Fortunately I've only had the tiny nests with 2-5 adults, so I've been able to handle it myself. If I had one that large I would have also called the experts! Pay the man.

  2. I suppose one of the reasons for the complexity of the operation is that professionals need to be able to do this during working hours, when the wasps are awake and full of energy. If you do something similar yourself, you're best off doing it at night, and try choosing a cold night.

    The way I've gotten rid of wasp nests historically has been to use combination of traps and a trusted vacuum cleaner to reduce the population to below sustenance levels. After that the nest dies. When the nest is difficult to reach, I've had success putting 3-4 traps in the vicinity (traps aren't effective right next to a nest anyway). But of course for immediate satisfaction, it's hard to beat the pro.

    (If you use a vacuum cleaner, make sure to plug up the hose! The critters will take a while to die. And no, spraying flammable aerosols and/or similar chemical compounds into a heated container with a steady flow of oxygen is a really, really bad idea. Best is if you can plug up just the bag with the engine still on, and then just put the bag in your freezer.)

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