Mid August in Bellingham means yellow jackets, and this photo is a pretty good picture of why my phone starts ringing this time of year.
See those wasps going in and out where the gutter meets the fascia board? There's a colony living inside that wall. From the ground you'd never know it was there unless you happened to look up at the right second.
Here's what's going on. That nest started back in April with one queen. It's now a few thousand workers, the colony has quit raising young, and everybody has switched from hunting bugs to hunting sugar. That's why they suddenly turn up at your barbecue and your pop can. It's also why they're a lot crankier than they were in June.
Couple of things worth doing this week. Walk around the house and look up at the roofline for steady two way traffic at any gap, vent or gutter seam. And mow slow. Most of the stings I hear about in Whatcom County come from somebody running a mower over a ground nest they had no idea was there.
If you find one, please don't spray it into a wall void yourself. That pushes them into the house and then you've got wasps in the living room. Give me a call and I'll take care of it right.
