Hornet Nest

After Comcast showed up early on Friday, Rachel and I decided to go out for breakfast at The Harrison House. On our way to the car, Diane, our neighbor, was also heading to her car. We started discussing the move, when she pointed out a hornets nest that was near our bedroom window. I thought she was referring to the wasp nest that Mark and Diddy had taken care of on Saturday, but she was actually referring to a new nest in front of our other bedroom window.


Bees - 1, Humans - 1

Before heading to breakfast, Rachel and I went to investigate the nest. There was a huge nest of hornets on the porch by the stairs to the third floor. In all my time in South Jersey, I had never actually seen any hornets. I’ve been stung by a fair share of yellow jackets and wasps, but was never stung by a hornet, so I wasn’t sure if I was even allergic to this new stingy insect. Diane was worried about the nest not only because it was so close to our window, but she was allergic to hornets. What is with all these people in Mullica Hill that are allergic to bees? Was that a requirement at some point to live in the town?


Rachel wanted to call Mark about the hornet nest, but I didn’t want to rely on him for a problem like this. The one thing I’ve learned from this moving experience, is that there are some issues that you have to deal with yourself or you will be on Mark’s Naughty List. After the last few weeks of hell with the moving situation, I felt that Rachel and I were finally off the Naughty List, and I didn’t want to take chances of returning to the list. I told Rachel that I would take care of the problem myself.

Dressed in my Sunday best (camo pants, a hooded long sleeve shirt, and towel wrapped around my face), I headed outside with my trusty can of Raid. I stood back and sprayed the nest, watching hornets drop like the wasps from Saturday. Of course there were about twice as many hornets as wasps, but only two managed to escape. I tried to spray them as they flew away, but they were agile flying creatures, and escaped the Raid. As for the nest, it was now drenched in Raid, and the hornets lay dead below.

Bees - 1, Humans - 2

Before I could bask in the glory of hornet genocide, Rachel noticed the two remaining hornets were trying to rebuild their hive on a different section of the porch by our window. I went out to check, and low and behold the two survivors were making some good progress on a new hive. Stupid hornets.

Bees - 2, Humans - 2

With the remaining contents of the Raid canister, I headed back outside to take care of Bonnie and Clyde. While they were working hard on rebuilding their hornet community, they didn’t realize that I was standing below them ready to kill. I sprayed the new hive with my insect genocide spray and watched Bonnie and Clyde join the remainder of their community - dead.

The hornets are still dead on the porch, I’m hoping the pile of dead bees will be a reminder to any other bees that I mean business.

Bees - 2, Humans - 3