[lawn care] What this stuff on my lawn?

[Kraken]

I discovered a Yellow Jacket Nest this year...

The have nests in the ground...

They defend them very zealously.

I was on a riding mower when I discovered said nest on the ground.

That was my absolute worst fear as a grass-cutting youth...running over a yellow jacket hole with the lawnmower. Shocked that you didn't get stung actually, but good for you!

We used to pour gas down the hole and light it...seemed to be effective, and a little fun as well!

Threading a garden hose a foot or two down the hole and turning the water on full blast does the trick, too.

[Unagi]

I don't think you guys are talking about yellow jackets. Who make 'paper nests', not in the ground at all. - or, other web-hits tell me otherwise... but - round these parts 'yellow jackets' make nests in trees or the eves under a roof.

edit: strange, I'm reading they do... but I've never seen them nest in the ground.? (lucky me!)

[Kraken]

The internet says that 70% of bee species nest underground. I think the ones that I drowned were hornets, but maybe I only called them that to justify drowning them.

[killbot737]

This year I noticed "sweat bees" on the flowers in my yard. I don't think I've ever seen them before, or I probably thought they were actual flies. They are tiny native north American bees that also build ground nests. Unless you look close they look like little robber flies (that is the whole secret of robber fly survival).

They aren't particularly aggressive, and if you get stung it's between a horsefly and a honeybee kind of pain. According to the internet. I just let them do their thing and land on me and fly away, just like the rest of the bee/hornet family. It's pretty obvious when they are pissed. Waving wildly like a rabid maniac pisses them of.

Keep calm and allow bugs to land on you.

Unless it's flies, fuck them. Or fleas or ticks or mosquitos. OK don't let shit that bites/stings land on you unless it's in the bee-ish family.

Certainly not moose.

[Lassr]

I discovered a Yellow Jacket Nest this year...

The have nests in the ground...

They defend them very zealously.

I was on a riding mower when I discovered said nest on the ground.

I now will nuke their asses from orbit.

I actually didn't get stung, which was very lucky, as they were very pissed after I ran over their little whole in the ground nest.

I put some Dust we have for killing insects, I forget what it is called, nine dust or some such, around the nest at night, and dumped a ton of it into the hole, and it seems to have done the trick.

Otherwise, I just mow the lawn and I could care less what is growing in it, as long as something is there. But I live in the country.

I am due this year. I have found one a year in my back yard for the past 5 years. And when I say find, I run over it and they sting the shit out of me. Yellowjacket is one of the more painful stings too. Fuckers.

[JonathanStrange]

And I thought slugs and those bitey little black&red ants were bad!

[Isgrimnur]

This year I noticed "sweat bees" on the flowers in my yard. I don't think I've ever seen them before, or I probably thought they were actual flies. They are tiny native north American bees that also build ground nests. Unless you look close they look like little robber flies (that is the whole secret of robber fly survival).

WaPo

The 29-year-old woman had no idea why her eye was swollen shut. She was in unbearable pain and could not stop tearing up. The Taiwanese woman said she was confused about why an issue she thought was an infection kept getting worse, CTS News reported.

But when the woman, identified by her surname He, received treatment at Fooyin University Hospital in Taiwan, doctors didn’t find a bacterial infection. While looking at He’s eyes through a microscope, Hung Chi-ting, the hospital’s head of ophthalmology, witnessed something he hadn’t seen before.

Insect legs were wiggling from one of her eye sockets.

He yanked out a small bee, known as Halictidae, or a “sweat bee.” And it was alive.

The doctor wasn’t done. Soon he extracted a second sweat bee. And a third.

And, finally, a fourth bee was pulled from the woman’s eyelid.

Craving salt, the bees had been feeding off He’s tears, the doctor said at a news conference last week, later describing the odd medical diagnosis as a “world first.” The insects had made a new home under He’s eyelid — that is, until they were all removed alive.
...
So how did sweat bees end up camping out in a woman’s eye? He suspects it all started the previous day. As He recounted in the news conference, she was taking part in the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day.

[Smoove_B]

I mean, a bee needs to eat.

[LawBeefaroni]

Literally feasting on the woman's tears. And picked up in a tomb no less.

[McNutt]

We have a declining bee population and this jackass just starts killing thriving colonies. Unbelievable.

[Jeff V]

We have a declining bee population and this jackass just starts killing thriving colonies. Unbelievable.

[Isgrimnur]

Two bees, or not two bees, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the eye to suffer
The stings and owies of outrageous fauna,
Or to take eyedrops against a swarm of sweat bees
And by opposing end them.

[Paingod]

That little story made my eyes start watering. I'll need the goggles to keep the bees out.

[McNutt]

Be careful out there, all.

[Isgrimnur]

That little story made my eyes start watering. I'll need the goggles to keep the bees out.

Here's hoping they do more than nothing.

[Brian]

Beauty is the eye as a bee holder.

[Isgrimnur]

Beauty is the eye as a bee holder.

[Unagi]

agreed
props, but it reads weird to me.

I'd prefer: "Ya know what they say, 'Beauty is in the eye of the bee holder'"

[em2nought]

Bees holed up in the eye of the beauty.