12—Lancaster Farming,
Saturday, August 27, 1966
Yellow Jacket
Control Study
Being stung by a yellow
jacket is a painful experience;
to a hypersensitive person, it
can tie fatal. Since a wooded
area may have two nests per
acre with up to 1,000 stinging
yellow jackets, control is im
portant to farmers, outodors
men and homeowners.
To adequately control yellow
jackets, you have to know their
life history and habitat, accord
ing to Dr. Paul Catts. assistant
piofessor. and Fred Preiss, re
search assistant, both in the
department of entomology and
applied ecology at the Univer
sity of Delaware Their pro
ject to provide the necessary
information is part of long
range research on the urban
impact on woodland ecology
The woik is carried out in the
35-acre University woodlot
To find out about'the yellow
jacket, the researchers first
have to locate the nests As
Catts points out. that may not
be easy, since the nests are
hidden three inches to a foot
undergiound In fact, the best
way to find the invisible nests
is to watch flying yellow jack
ets; they fly horizontally while
hunting food and vertically in
to the nest.
The nests are not evenly dis
tributed over ail the woodland
area; these wasps seem to pre
fer higher ground covered with
leaves or underbrush. The rea
son the yellow jackets nest in
a particular location is still un
known; the scientists are in
vestigating such factors as to
pogi aphy, temperature and
soil type.
The size of a cantaloupe,
the nests are made of “paper"
which the yellow jackets pro
duce ironi well-chewed wood.
The nest is suspended from
the surrounding earth with the
same material. A level landing
platform and a tunnel lead
fiom the ground surface to the
nest itself.
Inside the nest are tiers of
honeycomb like cells containing
the yellow jacket larvae The
queen lays eggs and the work
ers, which are sexless females,
care for the larvae and for
age for food. The workers have
an egg-laying organ which is
modified to sting. Drones are
males which appear in the late
summer to fertilize new queens.
The workers and drones do
not survive the winter, and if
more than one queen over
winters from each nest, they
each make a new nest in the
spung. Just before winter
there may be as many as 50
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ROHRERSTOWN,
queens in a nest, according to
Cotts. The population of the
nest is at its highest in the
late summer and early fall; as
many as 3000 yellow jackets
may be in a single nest.
As soon as the peak of the
yellow Jacket population is
reached, skunks begin to
show up at the University
wood lot, Calls says, and by
October all the wasp nests
are destroyed. Skunks arc
apparently tolerant of the
yellow jacket venom and re*
gard the wasps as a delicious
addtion to their diet. They
eat the entire population,
digging up the nest to get
at *the larvae and pupae.
Unfortunately skunks aren’t
the entire answer to the yellow
jacket problem since the
skunks are potential carriers of
rabies Catts hopes the research
will lea to other biological con
trol methods However, yellow
jackets can be controlled with
a DDT powder, such as a 65
per cent dust, liberally sprinkl
ed around the nest opening
and into the opening itself Use
the DDT at night, he cautions.
A bait can be used to cop,-
tiol yellow jackets especially
in picnic areas where the pests
come from many nests which
can’t all be located Combine
equal parts of cider vinegar,
sugar and DDT liquid or pow
der Place in small paper cups
WHEN YOU
BIRD OPTIMUM PERFORMANCE LINE
IT, WILL .
1. GET THEM THERE QUICKER.
2. KEEP THEM UP THERE LONGER.
3. BRING THEM DOWN SLOWER.
• FINEST SERVICE ANYWHERE •
“Don’t Buy Hay By The Bale And
Pay By The Ton,” Bull Warns
HARRISBURG The State Hay generally is baled in
Agriculture Department Wed- two sizes, he pointed out, 40-
nesday cautioned farmers to pound bales and 30-pound
insist on weight' slips when bales. These weights, however,
buying emergency supplies of are only approximate and may
hay. vary because of the condition
The warning followed a of the hay itself, and whether'
number of reports of farmers it is packed tightly or loosely,
in drought-stricken areas get- These circumstances, Bull ex
ting short weight when sold plained, could lead to a short
hay on the basis of 50 bales age of as much as 500 pounds
to the ton, according to State to a ton.
Agriculture Secretary Leland He advised farmers, to avoid
H. Bull. risk of loss, to insist that all
“While this is a common shipments be weighed. “Don’t
rule-of-thumb in judging the buy by the bale and pay by
weight of hay, it is far from the ton,” the secretary added,
accurate,” Bull said
out of children’s reach. , The disturbed. Even then they gen
bait is not attractive to honey erally will not follow a victim
bees so it won’t hurt them, ac- more than 25 feet. Nonetheless,
ccordmg to the entomologists people eating in the open have
As far as humans are con- been stung in the mouth or
cerned, yellow jackets are vil- throat by biting into a piece of
lains However, they, too, have food on which a yellow jacket
their place in the woodland has just landed,
ecology. They are part of the
woodlot sanitation department
necessary scavengers that
devour decaying organic matt-
Usually, according to Dr
Catts, yellow jackets are only
dangerous when the nest is
BIGGER PROFITS
TRY THE
FA.
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