In this particular instance, I’m referring to my anxiety related to nests inhabited by stinging insects, particularly wasps. You may recall a couple years ago, I had a terrible Saturday morning when I accidentally disturbed a yellowjacket nest on the east side of our house, safely tucked between an empty planter and our shed. This past Saturday, I was talking to my neighbor about our plethora of balls in the deck box, specifically in relation to something his puppy could use. (The deck box moved to this house a couple years ago and had not been sorted through in that time.) I had already handed him an old volleyball of mine that was stored under a nearby bench, but flipped up the lid to show him how many other balls we have. As we stood there talking, I noticed movement in my peripheral vision and realized that there was a hornet’s nest on the underside of the lid.
I swore, and we both immediately moved away from the box, him in response to my action before he noted the nest as well. We both took a few more steps for safety, and he offered to lend me the wasp spray he owned, though we both noted that it should wait until evening – wasps tend to be active during the day and dormant at night, so the ideal time to spray a nest is when most of them are clustered on it, resting. I sent Cassandra a warning to avoid the side patio and after lunch, we wandered off to an Arts & Crafts Fair at Morton Arboretum.
As the afternoon wore on, I noted that the impending thunderstorm might interfere with my plan to spray the nest that evening. Before the rain started – splendid rain, bringing about four inches of water to our yard – we had some high winds that caused me – after it started raining – to pop out the side door and see if the lid to the deck box was still open. Upon discovering that it wasn’t, I stepped out under the overhang and carefully flipped the lip open again, thinking that when the opportunity arose to spray the nest, I didn’t want to disturb them with the motion of opening it again.
A little while later, the rain let up, so I popped outside, grabbed the can, sprayed the nest thoroughly, and promptly ignored it for the rest of the evening as the rain came and went. Come morning, I verified that the nest was empty, noting several corpses in the deck box. I used a plastic bag to grab the nest, tied it off, and dropped it into our garbage can. I then emptied the entire box, organizing as I went… and much to my dismay, discovered a trio of yellowjackets tucked into the palm of a rather wet softball glove. The dismay was augmented when I dumped them into the grass and they began moving! Fortunately, they were the only ones, though I did proceed carefully in case there was another nest buried in the box.
Once the box was empty, I hauled it onto the grass, scrubbed it down, and left it to dry. In the afternoon, we started to refill the box, though we left some damp items drying nearby. We closed the lid… which turned out to be a mistake. When I went back out to put other items into the box, there were a few hornets at the spot where the nest had been, presumably trying to rebuild. I left the lid open again and retreated. When I returned a while later, they were gone, and I sprayed the area again to discourage them from returning.
A couple days later, with no evidence of hornets in the open box, I finally closed the lid again. So far, so good.