Beach Ball sized, alien grey and roughly 30 feet above us in the scrub maple, the nest bobbing now from the stream of hose water I purposely applied to its base for maximum destructive purposes.

I convinced my brother in law by marriage we could do this ourselves, if he was to purchase an extension gutter blow out. To this I screwed the common but effective adjustable brass water sprayer he already had, along with duct tape for connecting the 3’ gutter blowout extension (with the brass sprayer set to power stream) to a long wooden stick he also miraculously had in his garage, a painters 2” diameter round dowel stick at about 13’ long. A Bizarre and cumbersome item for the average consumer to store, hard to reposition inside the garage roof to fit, yet exactly what we needed to firmly extend the reach of pressurized water in the flexible hose.

As evening darkened and our kids were put to sleep, we trained his rear exterior wall house lights upward into the scrub maple hosting the hornet nest.

My brother in law manned the water spigot behind me as I stood on his hot tub cover holding the lower part of the round wooden dowel stick. I stood with my legs apart and instructed him to open the water valve.

In considering the water based destruction of the hornet nest, I weighed my options.  If I aimed for the top, I would simply mud the lower part. By soaking the bottom only, I hoped to ‘halve’ the colony, wide open with its lower half falling down, in the least amount of our exposure time outside as possible.

We had worked out our positioning and escape route: After he turned on the water valve on his exterior house siding, he would remain at the valve and watch for marauding hornets as I concentrated on dowsing the nest with our sprayer. He never announced seeing any hornets as I wet the nest down in the floodlit darkness, but we did both jump just a minute into the attack when a white moth caught the lights. After that, we relaxed a bit, as if we were doing nothing more then extinguishing a campfire, the nest would fall and we could go to sleep, at peace.

What also put us off guard was the lighting, a crude job by us to twist the lone rear house spotlight into the thickly leaved summer scrub maple to indicate nest location. But in the dark of Utah night, the nest remained speckled by tree leaves and hid the water damage well when, indeed, a lower portion of the nest fell away from the pressurized soaking stream of water, exposing the inner open hive. We did not see this happen or recognize the now darker spot of the open hive, and I continued to pulverize the now open and exposed hornet nest with the residential pressure spray of chlorinated water.

What my hornet fighting partner heard me delivering was roughly the same warning low “M” to a wailing “aaaaaaawwwwww” sounds Homo sapiens for thousands of years used instinctively. For those close enough, the low, overland subsonic rumble to wail vibration warned children, mothers, old, everyone:  “Death here, run quickly away.”

My brother in law by marriage ran away before my throat moved to the wail portion of the sound... I had felt a light walking feet on my chin, different I realized too late from the soft return spray of water mist. Surreal and strange enough, these bugs with slippers, to just allow me to warn others with my throats instinctive ‘MMMMM’ sound. Then, as if he had found the right, special soft skin spot for his ass to deliver his precious and life grown stinger, I felt hot lead zig into my lower lip, and brushed three hornets off my chin. I jumped towards the agreed to exit on the east side of his house, where we had propped open his gate just for this get away.

My brother in law was steps ahead of me, we swerved around to the front of the house and under the open garage door, pressing the close garage door button, gasping. He located his main water supply valve downstairs, and turned off all water to the home to stop the open water sprayer I dropped, now spraying violently in the backyard.

Protected (we hoped) inside and behind the glass slider back door, we stared under a quarter inch away at a belly dancing hornet squadron. They splayed themselves against the glass in fury, many swarmed about, and we worried about them finding their way in to our sleeping children's rooms. The wives were not impressed with this project to begin with, now even more angry with the “no flushing or washing” announcement, but to go out there to turn off the spigot in that swarm would be suicide.

These were no mosquitoes in an “OFF” Tent; these Hornets bodies were quivering with fury and a bursting desire to impale their stingers deep into the perpetrators of the mother nest’s attack, or anything with a warm signature in the summer Utah night. We could see the hornet’s details up close, 10 guarded the slider door, many danced around the skyward spotlight. In the air of the backyard, hornets flew and buzzed, patrolling in neat circles for nest attackers.

If we had remained out there, we would have had many, many stings.

Their bodies were zebra colored, with white and black alternating rings beginning in their middle and ending in black at the pointed stinger. The hornet faces were like others I had stared into over my span of time, emotionless, black eyed knobs between featureless porcelain. Only the attached quivering bodies and antenna revealed the anger and intention within.

These Bald Faced Hornets searched the yard catching live pests like Blue Bottle Flies, finding them and ripping them alive in pieces for their pupae, keeping the yard clear of pests and never attacking us except in defense this one night.

After a while their dancing slowed, 4 did not leave the screen all night, and first three, then two remained all night long against the glass. It was a warm night, and immediately we should have turned off the spotlight after the attack, but we stared at them for 5 minutes before turning off the attracting light. We now hoped to cool the bald faced buggers down as quickly as possible, so we could creep out and turn off the spigot. It was a delicate balancing act between the irate hornets and the livid wives, who suspected we were idiots. After an hour in the house darkness, I crept out in a rain poncho, walking around the house from the other direction and unlatched the western back gate, quickly found the spigot and turned it off without seeing or hearing a single hornet.

The Bald Faced Hornets were on the screen the next morning, but by the afternoon we moved about the backyard without incident. They repaired the bottom of the nest within a day, though it took weeks before the beach ball again had its healthy, ‘pressurized’ look. The Bald Faced Hornets are again snug in our tree condo, the ladies now wash and rest with running water, and the question is, do we attack in the fall, during my next visit?

Based on their looks we searched the internet using keywords "hornet" and "black and white." and found these zebra striped hornets were Bald Faced Hornets, though I have never met a “hair faced hornet”. Here are some informative sites:

Fairfax County Public Schools: Bald Faced Hornet:

http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/bald-faced_hornet.htm

International Wildlife : Black and white animals (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1170/is_n3_v26/ai_18213382)

Photo Credit Open Nest: United Exterminating Company

Face Close up: © 2002 Karen Wingle (source http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/about.htm)

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PS: Lessons learned: Remove hornet nests early in the spring, while it is still cold at night and before it grows too big! The bigger the nest, the more hornets inside.

On reflection, I would have soaked the whole nest less intensely initially, more like a powerful rain, first, for a while. I would apply the water in such a way to fool the hornets into thinking its just rain hitting the ‘roof’. Then, with the nest as wet as possible, I would apply the heavier torrent to the bottom as I did from the start in this example. But to make clear: This was a foolish attempt by amateurs, and if I did indeed want to attempt another foolish attempt by amateurs, I would do so in the rain, with the temperature under 55 Degrees. With a face mask.

AW Guy

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Other Air and Water Guy Articles:

Breeding Alpacas

Air/Water Rockets

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