Ground hornets pattern match too. I had a massive nest I had never noticed in an old stump. They hadn’t bothered me despite having walked by numerous times. Then one time I hit the nest with the riding mower. Man that sucked. I’m not outright allergic, but a dozen stings does make me feel sick. After that, anytime I got within 20ft of the nest with the mower they would come out in force.
Then a few years later I had the same thing happen with a raised garden bed. They never bothered me and I didn’t even know they were there, until my weedwacker attacked the entrance of the nest. I had to steer clear of that section of the garden for a few weeks after.
Ground hornets are horrible.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’ve only encountered those fuckers once in my life. They made a giant nest in a rather large sand and gravel pile on my parent’s property. After a year or so of them being there, an older cousin of mine had the idea to try to take them out with slingshots. I suggested napalm.
We compromised. We whipped up a batch of improvised napalm with a bunch of kerosene and a styrofoam cooler, poured that down the main entrance of the hive extremely carefully, and lit it on fire. We then spent the next few hours taking potshots at most of the hornets that tried to flee while on fire. We made certain to kill the queen when she finally emerged, though I don’t think she was long for the world anyway. She couldn’t fly, and had burning “napalm” covering half of her. We still made sure to throw a large stone on her.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Kerosene doesn’t dissolve styrofoam. You’re thinking of gasoline.
FishFace@piefed.social 3 days ago
Kerosene is still a non-polar solvent, why wouldn’t it dissolve styrofoam?
CatAssTrophy@safest.space 2 days ago
Somewhat, but not nearly as quickly or to the extent of something like gasoline, acetone or even d-limonene/orange oil (which is what I use to dissolve styrofoam packaging for repurposing, because it smells the best and is less flammable).
This video is someone dissolving polystyrene in kerosene, and as you can see it is a very slow process. www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1yDdIanTEA
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I was a kid at the time, but I’m pretty sure we used kerosene. It was red.