The yellow jackets are out with a vengeance right now. They are mysteriously attracted to me and won’t let me enjoy my life outside on the decks or the beach or even in my little garden.

I hate them and I have been working very hard to annihilate them.

First attempt:

This works well as long as there is stinky old salmon inside. The yellow jackets fly into the trap to eat the salmon, but they can’t get out. Lots of fun to watch–from a distance.

Here’s another one. The theory is that the yellow jackets eat the meat and then are so full they can’t fly, therefore toppling into the detergent-soaked water below.

This worked well with hamburger, but as you can see the chicken is not tempting them at all and has only drowned one wasp this morning. The bowl on the left is yesterday’s killing field. Alas, I am out of hamburger.

And yes, I know there are organic methods. I have tried them.

Check out the mint plant. The wasps love to sniff it instead of being repelled. See the cotton balls soaked with peppermint and lemongrass? Not a deterrent. I made up my own spray with water, detergent, and various oils (peppermint, clove, lemongrass) and yet…I still need the fly swatter if I am going to sit and try to read on the upper deck. I have had some luck hitting them with the fly swatter and then stepping on them as they lay stunned on the floor.

It’s very satisfying, but not relaxing.

So today I am bringing out the big guns.

There is POISON in that little plastic container. POISON mixed with stinky old salmon. “Fipronil” is the same poison used in tick and flea prevention drops. The wasps take their bits of poisoned stinky old salmon back to the nest and…voila! Death to all of the yellow jackets!

This is a solution that has worked in years past.

I am going to fix the trap–designed to keep birds and rodents safely out of it– to take down to the shore this afternoon. The wasps have been preventing me from sitting on the edge of the water and sifting through rocks in search of an elusive arrowhead. They have nests in the grass, I’m sure, and really take the fun out of sitting by the lake.

The weather is perfect right now–no smoke, no humidity and 80 degrees–and the only thing standing between me and reading a good book at the beach are these vicious little yellow jackets.

Today they die.