So, is this stuff really bad, or are hornets just gluttons?

[tinknal]

I get free 5 gallon pails from the local grocery store bakery. They contained frosting. I usually just set them out in the yard and let the goats and rain clean them up. They make great hornet traps. With an inch of rain water in them they attract hornets and they drown. Brought one home the other day and set it out. No rain, but the bottom of the pail is covered with dead and dying hornets. Is there something in the frosting killing them, are they just getting covered with frosting and that is killing them, or are they eating themselves to death?

Not complaining, dead hornets are good hornets.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by tinknal

I get free 5 gallon pails from the local grocery store bakery. They contained frosting. I usually just set them out in the yard and let the goats and rain clean them up. They make great hornet traps. With an inch of rain water in them they attract hornets and they drown. Brought one home the other day and set it out. No rain, but the bottom of the pail is covered with dead and dying hornets. Is there something in the frosting killing them, are they just getting covered with frosting and that is killing them, or are they eating themselves to death?

Not complaining, dead hornets are good hornets.

It sounds to me like it must be some really really good frosting.... if the hornets are killing each other for it.

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

It sounds to me like it must be some really really good frosting.... if the hornets are killing each other for it.

To be honest, even though I've gone paleo sometimes I'll wipe off a finger full of fresh frosting for a treat.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by tinknal

To be honest, even though I've gone paleo sometimes I'll wipe off a finger full of fresh frosting for a treat.

I am sure most any hunter/gatherer would! Can you imagine what one of those primitives would think of finding a bucket full of frosting! Woo hoo! party time!

[Fennick]

Originally Posted by tinknal

I get free 5 gallon pails from the local grocery store bakery. They contained frosting. I usually just set them out in the yard and let the goats and rain clean them up. They make great hornet traps. With an inch of rain water in them they attract hornets and they drown. Brought one home the other day and set it out. No rain, but the bottom of the pail is covered with dead and dying hornets. Is there something in the frosting killing them, are they just getting covered with frosting and that is killing them, or are they eating themselves to death?

Not complaining, dead hornets are good hornets.

Probably something in the frosting is killing them, maybe artificial sweetners, chemical preservatives and food dyes. Hornets won't eat themselves to death and in nature they get into sweet things much more sticky than frosting without ill effects. Check the labels on the buckets for the list of ingredients.

[chickenmommy]

It's probably the shortening. The grocery store frosting is shortening and confectioners sugar, a little vanilla and a bunch of food coloring. I can't imagine that hydrogenated shortening is good for them. And it would be nearly impossible to fly after being coated in it I would think.

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[7thswan]

They are eating so much that they can't fly. Sugar is like a drug.

[fatrat]

That's what I was thinking, the hydrogenated oils may be the reason. I just hope the honey bees don't get into it.

[PNWest]

I think the grease is getting on their wings and they can't fly. Any insect in there would have the same problem.

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by chickenmommy

It's probably the shortening. The grocery store frosting is shortening and confectioners sugar, a little vanilla and a bunch of food coloring. I can't imagine that hydrogenated shortening is good for them. And it would be nearly impossible to fly after being coated in it I would think.

Sent from my Novo 10 Hero QuadCore using Tapatalk 4

Good point, hadn't thought of that.

Anyway it makes a dandy hornet trap.

[fishhead]

It's probably something in the frosting that is reducing the surface tension of the water. Once full wasps like to drink before flying back to the nest but the lack of surface tension prevents them from standing on the water and they fall into it and drown.

That's the same principal used in the yellow jacket traps I built in AK. If you watch them they will try to drink and fall under the surface. I've used it to almost wipe out yellow jacket nests.

Just hang a piece of meat over the lip of a pail. Add water and a little bit of dish soap to break the surface tension. Place the bucket near the nest and get ready to skim the dead wasps off the surface of the water.

[suitcase_sally]

Food for thought (no pun intended), honey bees aren't the only pollinators. I plant purple hull peas every year and the wasps (hornets?) just love them. They crawl all over the stem joint where the beans grow out. I can pick the beans while hundreds of the critters are on the plant and they never get aggressive. We need all the pollenators we can get.

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by suitcase_sally

Food for thought (no pun intended), honey bees aren't the only pollinators. I plant purple hull peas every year and the wasps (hornets?) just love them. They crawl all over the stem joint where the beans grow out. I can pick the beans while hundreds of the critters are on the plant and they never get aggressive. We need all the pollenators we can get.

These are yellow jackets. Yellow jacket nests self destruct every fall and they all die. Before they die however they become very aggressive. Nothing is being pollinated right now and all these critters are going to be dead in a few weeks anyway. As far as honey bees, I haven't seen more than a couple all year.

[Glacialtill]

[QUOTE=tinknal;6749674]These are yellow jackets. Yellow jacket nests self destruct every fall and they all die. Before they die however they become very aggressive.

I knew someone who was studying for her PhD in entomology and she said the aggressive yellow jackets you find in the fall are males that can't sting and are just a nuisance not a threat. And their days are numbered.

Just looked it up and found this:

"From late summer into early fall the queen produces queen and male yellowjackets. Each nest can produce thousands of new queens. Queens and males swarm from the nest and mate. The males, workers, and old queens die as winter approaches. Newly mated queens seek overwintering sites in protected places such as logs, under bark or leaf litter, and occasionally in structures. They remain dormant through the winter and begin the cycle once again in the spring."

http://web.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/pdf_pubs/YLLWJKT.PDF

[tinknal]

Glacial, I assure you that the aggressive yellow jackets of autumn can and do sting. Ask me how I know.........

[dcross]

When they stop raising young they have no source of sugar. They go nuts, but i wouldn't call them aggressive, i picked one off my shirt and let it walk on my hand recently. Showing off for some kids

I see lots of dead ones among the rotting crab apples,and they used to die in and around the feeders when i open fed my bee hives. I doubt it's the frosting.

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by dcross

When they stop raising young they have no source of sugar. They go nuts, but i wouldn't call them aggressive, i picked one off my shirt and let it walk on my hand recently. Showing off for some kids

I see lots of dead ones among the rotting crab apples,and they used to die in and around the feeders when i open fed my bee hives. I doubt it's the frosting.

I have never found them to be aggressive away from the nest, but this time of year all you have to do is walk too close to the nest and they will swarm you.

[GoldenCityMuse]

I can live with most wasps, but yellow jackets are simply too aggressive. I kill them when I can.

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by GoldenCityMuse

I can live with most wasps, but yellow jackets are simply too aggressive. I kill them when I can.

I agree. The only times I've been stung by wasps was when I severely disturbed them. Once when I stuck my arm in a jacket sleeve with a wasp in it, and once when I accidentally knocked a nest onto the back of my neck.

[Rick]

And Our two cents....

In fall they BITE us for the meat. I don't care what sex they are, or what they pollinate THEY are DEAD meat.