Bee Hive pics, gray paper type, black bees

[Clawhammer]

FWIT....I believe a super-soaker filled with BMW wiper fluid makes a fairly effective flame-thrower ! Long range-low cost!

[Jimd]

I recall an occasion in my youth when I was playing hide-and-go-seek with the neighbor kids. I was hiding in a thick line fence between our yards. I'd sat down in the foliage and remember being irritated because the "horse flies" were really buzzing around my head as I kept swatting at them to ward them off.

I realized they weren't horse flies in short order; all at once, I was stung several times by yellow jackets. It seems that I'd been sitting either on top of their underground nest, or right next to it (didn't stay to check, either).

They were displeased with me.

[oregon]

The inside of a Baldfaced Hornets nest (I found this on the ground in the brush near Cascade Locks and opened it up to see what the structure was like) Note that the nest is inverted for the pics:





I assumed that, because the nest was on the ground with ants running around the exterior, that the nest was empty and in the process of degrading. At least one of the cells, covered with a tough white cap, contained a live one! :eek: It or they, might have been in storage until next year. Clearly, all of the bees, those not in cells, were dead, what few remained fell out of the hive easily.

oregon