This bald-faced hornet nest is about 10 feet off the ground. The nest will not be used again after the fall, and the nest may be safely collected after the first hard frost. Usually, the main opening is at the bottom of a nest, but this opening is on the side.
A stinging proposition: bald-faced hornets
A few days ago, a friend called to tell me that there was a nest-like object in a nearby tree behind the house. I went to visit, and there was indeed a basketball-sized object in a hemlock tree. The gray oval shape betrayed the fact that it was a wasp nest. The east-facing entrance hole was busy with arriving and departing wasps, and a look through my friend’s binoculars confirmed that this nest was that of the bald-faced hornet.
My evenings the week of Monday, July 19 through Friday, July 23 were spent mentoring teenagers at the Trout Unlimited (TU) Water Camp. Kurt Nelson of the Al Hazzard Chapter, who has the overwhelming force of a whirling dervish, manages all the major and minor challenges of running this week-long operation. Eleven sturdy young men and two pretty young ladies participated in this year’s Water Camp. They came from as far as Hamburg, NY and the Borough of Queens in New York City.
