Let this be a WARNING...

[Plumcrak]

If you ever run into one of these things DO NOT poke it with a stick!!

1.

2.

3.

This bad boy was found in my parents tree by the crew that was dropping 17 trees on their property

It is about 14" diameter and 24" tall. Needless to say, they left it alone.

[Digital]

The tree crew was very SMART.


Bruce

[Ken MT]

How fast can you run if it had fallen?

[gregj1763]

Don't get those sort of things here Jon, I assume it would be full of angry winged beastie's ready to make your day very unpleasant if provoked

[Steve S]

Yellow jacket, or bald faced hornets? If bald faced, I would keep a little extra distance. Those things are real nasty.

[gregj1763]

Yellow jacket, or bald faced hornets? If bald faced, I would keep a little extra distance. Those things are real nasty.

Is this one ?



In which case we call them European wasps and you're right, really bad tempered nasty buggers.
They usually nest indoors here because of the colder climate I guess.
In fact my father did an insurance claim once where a bedroom ceiling collapsed under the weight of one of their nests seconds after a mother removed her child from it's cot.
She heard a load crash after she closed the bedroom door, opened the door to see what happened and closed it even quicker. Scary, the baby would have almost certainly have been killed.

[Steve S]

Is this one ?



In which case we call them European wasps and you're right, really bad tempered nasty buggers.
They usually nest indoors here because of the colder climate I guess.
In fact my father did an insurance claim once where a bedroom ceiling collapsed under the weight of one of their nests seconds after a mother removed her child from it's cot.
She heard a load crash after she closed the bedroom door, opened the door to see what happened and closed it even quicker. Scary, the baby would have almost certainly have been killed.

Similar, but around here, they have a black body and white face. Very mean tempered.

[arith]

What do you plan on doing with it though? I've seen pest control drop a wasp nest into a large bag then set fire to it.

[Plumcrak]

How fast can you run if it had fallen?

Ken, not near fast enough, too old and too fat

[Plumcrak]

Don't get those sort of things here Jon, I assume it would be full of angry winged beastie's ready to make your day very unpleasant if provoked

Greg, this is full of Paper Wasps. Very nasty if provoked.


(I did not take this picture, I pulled it from Google images)

[gregj1763]

Greg, this is full of Paper Wasps. Very nasty if provoked.

Yep, they look grumpy to me

[Plumcrak]

What do you plan on doing with it though? I've seen pest control drop a wasp nest into a large bag then set fire to it.

Not sure what we are doing yet, other than spraying it with wasp spray to slow them down. Probably wait til colder weather and cut the branch off and burn it. Dad had sprayed one many years ago and thought it was completely dead so he cut it down and hung it on the wall in his shop. Guess what happened when it warmed up?? Yep, his shop was full of really angry wasps. That was mot a good day. Luckily nobody got stung, just shut the door and called the exterminator. The clean up seemed like it took forever, we were finding dead wasps months later

[rtbaum]

The nest is of bald faced hornets or yellow jackets. Most likely bald faced, as yellow jackets usually will build in a hole and thus the papery nest is not visible. Both can be quite aggressive if the nest is disturbed, with emphasis on the nest being disturbed. The nest will be abandoned at the end of the season. My advice is 1) if the nest is high and inaccessible or not in an area that is not frequented, let nature take its course. 2) If it must be removed, call a professional. When I was an exterminator, these were controlled with an insecticidal dust injected into the nest with a long pole.

Just remember that if you do not disturb them, they will not disturb you.

[Arlen]

Just remember that if you do not disturb them, they will not disturb you.

Usually this is very true. Away from the nest, bald-faced hornets are rarely aggressive, in my experience.

However, when I was a teenager, my dad and I were in a small boat on a river when a big windstorm came up, and we ducked into a side cove to wait it out. Suddenly my dad started jumping around and yelling, as he was getting stung. It turned out that a nest just like the one pictured above was on a small limb of the tree we were under, and the wind was whipping it around to such an extent that it had gotten the hornets all stirred up and in maximum defense mode.