A "Date" with Yellow Jackets!

Once before, I told you about the Yellow Jackets that were terrorizing the hillside.  So far, (knock on wood) none of us have been stung but the wasps are making a terrible nuisance of themselves.  If there is any available food source, you can rest assured that these critters will be (literally) crawling all over it!  The type of food matters not..anything from dead fish to strawberry trifle is fair game with these guys!  They must have a most keen sense of smell because within a matter of seconds anything that is edible will have at least a dozen or so attacking it..within minutes, hundreds will be swarming nearby.  AND they will defend their right to this food against any who try to shoo them away!

Earlier in the spring, I had noticed that the Sawtooth Palmettos were in full bloom!  I was determined to watch the clumps of fronds during the fall so I could gather the dates.  Yesterday, Mark and I made our way down the hill to the largest clump.  The palmettos were full of plump, black dates!  They were ready to be picked and I should have been able to gather a nice mess except for one teeny-tiny problem..or rather a bunch of teeny-tiny problems!  On my nice fat dates, there were swarms of Yellow Jackets!  These wasps were eating my dates!  Shoo!  Get!  Scram!  Nope!  I was not crazy enough nor had a unquenchable desire for palmetto dates to make an attempt at scaring the wasps away.  I was in no way coming between those critters and their food!

At first, I assumed that the wasps were dining upon the old, overripe dates but after watching them for a bit, I came to realize that they were actually gnawing tiny holes in the plump dates.  The juice of the date was then sucked out of the peeling leaving an empty husk!  Ohhh....these guys were smart!  I suppose that I really need to find this Yellow Jacket nest!  Somewhere close, there is a quarter-sized hole in the ground that houses a huge hive!  It is relatively hard to find as the wasps are uniquely adept at concealing the entrance and it is well-guarded!  I most usually find them the hard way by running my lawnmower over top of the entrance.  Then the critters will come from all angles bombarding me and stinging me as I try to escape!  Not fun....not fun at all!  The only hope is to find the nest during the daylight hours and then plan a nighttime attack on the swarm!  Most of the wasps will crawl back into the tiny hole to spend the night.  It is then that a single, long-necked drink bottle filled with gasoline can be jammed into the hole.  This will block the entrance and flood the hive with gasoline killing all inside!  Yep...this trick has been passed down through generations and is the only surefire way I know of getting rid of the Yellow Jackets!  So...if weather permits, tomorrow, I shall search once again for the entrance hole to the hive.  Wish me luck!