My Six on Saturday are the creepy crawlies I’ve been finding in the yard recently.
1. I’ll start with the not-so-creepy, the honeybee. It’s one of many pollinators hanging out on the cucumber vines.
2. The brown paper wasp looks like your worst nightmare in miniature, but they are pollinators and not aggressive.
3. I think this is a yellow paper wasp. I don’t see as many of these as the brown ones.
4. Lady bugs are nice to have around. They help out in the garden by eating aphids. When I took this picture I assumed this was a cute little lady bug. It’s not. It’s a vegan squash lady beetle. It likes to chew on juicy squash stems.
5. I thought these were cute too. At first. They look like living pen and ink drawings. They’re on my squash leaves because they’re squash beetle nymphs that feed on the leaves. I sprayed them with an oily insect spray. I’m not sure whether it killed them or just made them miserable, but there aren’t as many now.
Squash beetle eggs look like neat little buttons. I sprayed them too.
6. I was searching for May beetles on the plum tree when I came upon the scariest of all – a hornet’s nest!
I’ve never seen a hornet’s nest up close before. It’s like something from a horror movie.
I got just close enough to find out it’s a nest of bald face hornets. They eat insects, but don’t seem to have a taste for squash beetles. I will be giving the plum a wide berth until this winter when it’ll be taken down by someone who knows what they’re doing.
Check out the original Six on Saturday.
stoneyknob.wordpress.com 
As scary as hornet’s nests are, they are also rather beautiful constructions. We had one in a building where I worked a few years back; we left it there and they didn’t trouble anyone. The next year they abandoned it.
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It’s a busy nest. They are constantly working on the outside. It took me years to get used to paper wasps. I don’t know if I can learn to appreciate hornets.
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That nest is an amazing thing. You’re lucky to have seen it – in more ways than one.
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KILL IT! or GET A FEARLESS NEIGHBOR TO KILL IT! Those hives scare me. I have had to get rid of a few in public places. Those that are out of the way on the farm are just avoided. Most of our wasps are underground. We sometimes set out traps around public spaces if wasps are abundant. I find it amusing that the literature that comes with the traps provides information about identifying the wasps. I really do not need to become any more acquainted with them than I am as I dump out their dead carcasses. Seriously, I do not intend to get close enough to see the patterns on their tiny butts!
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I would love to make it disappear but I’ve been advised to leave it alone until winter when I can get someone to remove it. I’ve never heard of trapping a nest. Just last week I was weeding under the tree, blissfully unaware thing was right above my head. I stepped on an underground yellow jacket nest a few years ago. That was a memorable experience.
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Traps are not for nests, but individual wasps. Wasps that build big nests like yours are rare here. Many build smaller nests for smaller colonies underground. Many are solitary. The traps are for any, regardless of their respective domestic lifestyles, when they come into public spaces where they could be a bother to guests. They just fly in and can not fly out.
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The option with this thing is to coat the hive and the entrance with a wasp spray. I’d rather wait until winter when the adults and leaves are all gone and have someone carry it into the woods.
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That would be the preferred option, unless of course it would be potentially dangerous to leave it there, or it prevents you from getting fruit from the tree.
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Yikes! a hornets nest. Don’t see many hornets here although there are native species.
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I’m in the leave-the-nest camp, mostly becuz, as Jim says, they’re a work of art. I don’t think they come back to the same next the next year, but could be seriously wrong. Hope you learn to live together. Really enjoyed those photos of the different pests, too. I’m going out to look at my pumpkin vines w/this new intel on the enemy.
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