I've had some landscape/gardening professionals confidently tell me that the gigantic bee-like things I've seen around our house are Japanese Hornets. Other sources are mixed on whether we actually have Japanese Hornets in this area, or could be European Hornets. Either way, they are huge and terrifying, and I'm not normally afraid of bees.

We had one nest near our front door. It took multiple cans of that wasp-killer stuff that can reach 20 feet, sprayed from a protected location, to kill them. That nest is now thankfully gone, I still occasionally see one at a time buzzing through our yard but can ignore it.

I understand the live and let live approach, but my kids and the neighbors kids play soccer and other games in our yard. Can you imagine the scene if a wayward soccer ball bounces into one of these hives??? My 6yo has already stepped in one yellowjacket hive while running around on the lawn, poor kid had stings all over his legs. I don't go overboard protecting the kids from injury, but removing bee/wasp/hornet nests is an easy step to keep our yard fun, not painful or scary.

I'd guess they are carpenter bees. I too have heard the best way to get rid of them is to paint the wood they are nesting in. Also remove any extra wood (like firewood, old posts or planter boxes) you may have lying around.

We have them crashing into our deck door regularly but usually we only have about 2 flying around and they are non-aggressive.

Carpenter bees are really easy to get rid of - just spray the holes they make with spray paint (any color) and they won't go back to it. They'll most likely stay away from the area too. They hate the smell but it doesn't kill them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what they are either, but I think that the moral of this story is, "Don't spray pesticides at insects that aren't bothering you."

YEs we should love west nile, malaria and bed bugs

I don't know about you, but I definitely put mosquitoes and bed bugs in the category of insects that are bothering me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what they are either, but I think that the moral of this story is, "Don't spray pesticides at insects that aren't bothering you."

The wasps were near the deck and that is never a good thing. People hang out on their decks. Wasps sting people, usually unprovoked (unlike bees). Allergies to insect stings are common and deadly serious.

I think it's possible to take the whole laissez-faire "let nature be nature" bit too far, and wasps are certainly where I would draw the line. Are you also one of the people on the bamboo thread telling people to just go with it, cause, hey, it's just bamboo and NBD?

How do you know that they are wasps? OP and OP's husband don't know what they are. That's the point. (OP also didn't say anything about allergies.)

And no, wasps in general don't sting people unprovoked. Every year we have paper wasp nests near the back door. We have never been stung by a paper wasp, not once. The only wasps that have ever stung us more or less unprovoked are yellow jackets. And yellow jackets don't nest in trees.

So, what happened? There was a nest of insects that were not (based on OP's post) bothering anybody. Then OP's husband sprayed the nest. Then the insects did start bothering OP.

Anonymous wrote:Carpenter bees? Or cicada killer wasp?

If they were really large, they were probably cicada killer wasps. The males don't have stingers but they are territorial:
http://www.allgoneservices.com/wasp_control.php

Just leave them alone and they'll back off.

If they were carpenter bees, you'll see where they're entering their nest. Treat the nest directly:
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Carpenter-Bees

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what they are either, but I think that the moral of this story is, "Don't spray pesticides at insects that aren't bothering you."

YEs we should love west nile, malaria and bed bugs

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what they are either, but I think that the moral of this story is, "Don't spray pesticides at insects that aren't bothering you."

The wasps were near the deck and that is never a good thing. People hang out on their decks. Wasps sting people, usually unprovoked (unlike bees). Allergies to insect stings are common and deadly serious.

I think it's possible to take the whole laissez-faire "let nature be nature" bit too far, and wasps are certainly where I would draw the line. Are you also one of the people on the bamboo thread telling people to just go with it, cause, hey, it's just bamboo and NBD?

I don't know what they are either, but I think that the moral of this story is, "Don't spray pesticides at insects that aren't bothering you."

Carpenter bees? Or cicada killer wasp?

Uh oh. I don't know what they are, but I do know you may want to call an exterminator! Good luck, OP. Please post back and let us know what they are.

This isn't exactly gardening, but I thoughts some local garden aficionados might know...my back door and windows in Lorton, about 2 miles from the Occoquan River, are being attacked by really big waspy hornets angry bee-like insects. About 10 of them. They're banging into the window. Attracted to the light I assume. My DH notices what he thought were bees - and I thought they were waaaaay bigger than bees -- flying out of a nest they mut have made in a hole of an old silver maple near our deck. He sprayed the hole with RAID anti-hornet spray about 3 hours ago. Now they are literally swarming me into the house...there are so many near the door that I can't go out out the garbage.

They are thick and about as long as my thumb...maybe an inch and a half? When they hit the glass, there's a substantial thunk. Any idea what they could be? I've never has this kind of problem in our yard or garden! We have a butterfly bush that gets tons of giant bees, but nothing like these!