Honey Pests

It's yellow jackets. They are the pests.

I set the equipment and supers after extracting honey out into the yard. Bees immediately found the stuff and began cleaning it off. But I guess I left it too long, or maybe this is a normal part of the process, but I got hordes of yellow jackets, too. After the bees had long gone, the yellow jackets hung around.

I finally went out in the yard with my bee suit on to carry some of the equipment away. The yellow jackets followed and seemed to find me more interesting than the equipment. So I stood there for 30 minutes, waiting for them to get on my arm or belly where I could kill them. I probably got a couple of dozen. It didn't put a dent in their colony. It just felt good.

Now that the equipment is gone and the wax more or less cleaned up, I see just a few. It will help next year if I have a hive in my own yard again. Then I can put the supers back on the hives. I will remember (I hope) to move everything further away from the house.