Hornet nest!!!

[manfred]

I was walking over a small acreage that I want to clear and found a hornet nest about 4 ft off the ground.
How can i remove it without getting attacked? Do they all sleep during the cold weather? I'm scared.

[BlackFeather]

Go at night, I'm guessing the entrance is at the bottom, if you want to destroy them take a torch and set it under the entrance and start the paper on fire, then run . Personally if it isn't bothering anyone leave it, they hunt all kinds of flies and other bugs. If you just want them to move, again at night take a long pole and knock it down or rip it up, they will chew it up and move it.

[beegrowing]

Are they active at the entrance? They can still be active inside when they look abandoned though.....
I'd just get a can of store-bought hornet/wasp killer that shoots 6?or more feet and YES go out at night with a flashlight and spray it real well (as in soak it). No fire hazard and I've never had them come out except to drop dead out the bottom, so no running.(lots of folks do it BlackFeather's way though!)
I do a lot of things organic but I don't mess with those things! (I don't want our pets getting hurt). After a day they'd all be dead for sure and you can remove it. I saw a woodpecker eating a hornet nest one time so if I poison one I don't just leave it.

[||Downhome||]

something comes thru every late spring early fall clears them out.

goes for the ground bees as well.

[BlackFeather]

Originally Posted by ||Downhome||

something comes thru every late spring early fall clears them out.

goes for the ground bees as well.

Skunks, but not usually 4 feet high.

[COWS]

This time of year with cold weather coming on? The cold weather will kill them. Something will destroy the nest, or it will decay. AFIK they will not reuse the nest next year. Unless they are real close to human traffic they will do no harm and they eat other insects, which makes them beneficial to humans. I would leave them alone. I have a large nest under the eaves of a barn which I may take down this winter and give to grandchildern for a curiosity.

COWS

[Danaus29]

Cold weather kills all but the young queens which hibernate through the winter. If the old nest is reused, it is reused by the young queens when they start building their own nests. It's pretty fascinating, the wasps will bite off pieces of the old nest and chew them up to reuse in a new nest somewhere else.

Lots of people cut the branch the nest is hanging on and keep the nest in a barn or shed. I've seen nests for sale at flea markets and swap meets. It always amazes me how much some people will pay for something like that and use it to decorate their home.

My grandpa had a bunch of them in the loft of the tractor shed.

[ceresone]

saw something interesting on the news last night. They were speaking of drone use in the US. Said farmers were even using them--the demonstration they gave was using a drone to spray a hornets nest!

[wy_white_wolf]

Dare the town idiot to smack it with a baseball bat. He might get attacked put you won't if you're not around when he does it.

WWW

[big rockpile]

Cold drives them into the ground. Right now I have 3 of them but have sold many.

big rockpile

[DOlthaus]

I just took care of a very large hornets nest last month. I worried about it for a month. That gave it time to get huge! I bought two cans of the "kills on contact" spray that shoots 20 feet or so. Went at night. Started spraying into the entrance and kept spraying until the dead bees blocked entrance. Then I coated the entire nest. I sprayed most of both cans. Not a single hornet got out! Next day, there was no activity but I coated the nest again, just to be sure. Later that day, I double bagged it and put it out for the trash. The key is to keep spraying into the entrance, once you start. Spray at all angles you can quickly to coat as much of the inside of the nest as possible. I worried about all the stories I've heard about hornets but I was really pretty easy. Good luck.