Messing with Hornets

Update: In the light of day I was brave enough to see what happened to the hornets. Here's a picture of their nest (it broke in two but was still hanging from the rafters). There were a lot of bodies littering the floor. YUCK!


My mum's house has what we call a solarium on the back of it. When we listed our place, we put a lot of boxes of things in there to store them so that our house would look empty and pretty. Well, with one thing and another, we haven't quite finished unpacking and so those boxes have been sitting in there since January. Last night Andrew went into nesting mode and decided to deal with the boxes.

In doing so, he discovered a MASSIVE hornets nest right by the door. Since the door to the solarium is also only a few feet from the path we take to our suite, AND on the way to mum's deck, we decided we'd better deal with it pronto.

And so tonight, Andrew and I ventured outside...armed with a step ladder, a can of raid and a super powered flashlight, we were going to finish off those nasty creatures. Or so we thought.

No sooner had I shone the flashlight on the nest, then they started coming out. Oh, only a few, I could count four from where I was, but I guess they thought it was day time from the light shining on their nest. Or maybe they knew what we were up to.

Being a big, wussy, chicken (and also, not very good at running these days) I decided to go stand at the front of the house where I could hear Andrew, but had less of a chance of getting attacked. Andrew went back in for the kill.

You stand about six feet away from the nest and squirt the Raid at the hole. The stuff foams up, supposedly plugging the hole so the hornets can't get out, then you get the nozzle into the nest and squirt the living daylights outta them creeps. Well, apparently the force of the squirting knocked the nest away from the wall...allowing some of 'em to escape.

Standing at the side of the house, I heard the clatter of the ladder and flashlight falling, Andrew stumbling and then running up towards me.

Yup, he'd been stung. That picture of him? That's him sitting on the kitchen counter after I applied an ice pack and some baking soda to his wounds. And yes, I gave him a bowl of ice cream for his bravery.

Only now, all the little (and I use the term little loosely) guys that escaped are buzzing angrily outside our door. I know because I was going to get a picture of the nest (from a distance, I'm not completely stupid), and as soon as I opened the door, there they were!! And I swear I can hear them buzzing....we may have to let Andrew's flashlight batteries die, and try to get it back tomorrow. But, just before we went to go fight the hornets I turned the sprinkler on to water my flowers. How am I going to get out to shut that off??