A salt weapon

Here's a neat little gizmo for your pellet gun. It's called: "The Bug Blaster".
You put salt in the reservoir, and shoot flies, bees, horseflies and spiders. It will literally explode a horsefly onto your window. Cool! I use mine in my machine shop away from my machines. Plus I don't use salt. I use glass bead media. You get about ten shots per fill up. Two or three foot range is about it. They're available in .177 & 22 cal. I can't remember what I paid for it, but it wasn't pricey. A guy in Utah makes them. Here's his info:

Bugblaster Products
7455 N. 2400 W
Amalga, Ut. 84335
(435) 563 3332

A seriously cool idea.

We used to use spaghetti for the same effect. A strand of angel hair pasta will fracture into lots of little pieces.


Dan

I frequently hunt the wasps around my scrap metal pile with my Benjamin. While I think I am a pretty good shot, there are enough misses that my hunting expiditions become dangerous. I hate getting stung by them and is one of the reasons I hunt them. What a drag it is to go to the scrap pile to get a piece of something and actually grab one of the nests that is concealed on the underside of the piece I am picking up. I have an old spring gun with a bad bore and thought that if I could get some of the gel capsules and some kind of fine shot, bore the barrel for the correct size, I could have a air shotgun that might even be able to get the critters on the wing. When I was a kid, I used to cock my old Crosman BB gun and pour sand down the barrel for the same effect but of course it had no range - you had to be right on top of your target to kill it. Can't imagine it was very good for the action though. Strike anywere matches were fun too. Poison sprays, while very effective, do noticeably impact the song bird population in the yard.

Super soaker filled with soapy water is hell on wasps.

You need enough soap that it will coat them. The weigh of the water brings them down and the soap prevents them from breating through their skin.

Its stunningly effective and safe around the song birds.
Not sure its the best bet indoors, but used correctly it could help clean the shop as well.

Fun

A hellofa fun time is shooting grasshoppers from a distance of less than 20 yards.

Especialy in dirt or sand, Pretend they are tanks, and take em out.

No I am not 10, but been doing it for 40 years off and on, since I WAS 10.

Don't knock it till you try it.

If a bird eats a wasp killed by soapy water, the bird will die too. Their digestive systems cannot handle soap. At least this is what I was told by the local bee keeper when he came to talk to me about removing the bee hive in my wall. For wasps, I have been using a can of starting ether and a cigarrette lighter on nests in the scrap iron lately. A short blast to soak them and then ignite. I am hoping the fire burns off all the toxic stuff. The pellet rifle is more fun but is also much to time consuming.

This work slowdown is brutal! You guys seriously need some work!
Steve
I can't believe I read this post

scadvice said:

This work slowdown is brutal! You guys seriously need some work!
Steve
I can't believe I read this post

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I can't believe you posted to it.

IOWOLF said:

I can't believe you posted to it.

Click to expand...

I can't believe it either... but it is funny...and you gotta laugh in life!
Steve

About 15 years ago I discovered a very large wasp nest which was about the size of a large coffee can on the side of my garage in an area where we seldom walked that faced the driveway... I had a VW beetle at the time parked about 20 feet away...

Being unemployed at the time, I decided that I would fill some of my free time by eliminating the wasps one at a time with my Daisy BB rifle that had a 4X scope on it. Checked the zero on my scope for the appropriate range and since it was safe to shoot in that direction I just sat in the VW with a cool drink and my rifle and picked off each wasp who was guarding the front opening to the nest. The first wasp disapppeared like it had been hit with a nuclear blast... what fun!

Each time one would disappear, another would stupidly take his place... It was a great way to spend a lazy afternoon. No noise, and great satisfaction each time I took one out. When things got slow I would just put one BB through the nest and that would excite them a little... often bringing two or more guards to the front opening... sometimes they even lined up behind each other and I managed to get more than one for each shot.

I was prepared in case they determined where the threat was coming from. I planned to just roll up the window and drive away... but it was never necessary... They just couldn't tell from where or how they were being attacked.

If you have ever been stung by a wasp...then you know what a great feeling it is to take them out without fearing retaliation... I happen to be allergic to bee stings.

I shot a big hornets' nest with my 16ga.

When I was younger, I shot a hornets' nest with my 16ga, loaded with bird shot. The nest was about the size of a soccer ball, hanging above the main trail into the woods @ my grandmother's property. It was between 2 steep hills, and up about 25' in the tree. When standing on the top of the taller hill, the nest was only about 10' up, and 30' away. I shot it, and the nest disappeared, but the hornets DIDN'T! All the sudden there was a mass of hornets all buzzing around wondering what happened to their nest. All that was left of the nest was a few pieces of the shell, and a gob of eggs in the "honeycomb" structure that fell to the ground. I didn't stick around long enough to let them figure out it was me that did it.

Wasps nests

Shooting Wasps, Grasshoppers and other such targets with an air rifle is a good way to improve your accuracy.

However, when it comes to actual Wasps nests, you need a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Fortunately, most of us have one.

It is the Shop Vac. Turn it on, stick the end into the nest, and it sucks the little so-and-so insects up nicely. Hornets, Wasps, and their cousins are no match for Black (and Decker).

.

buffdog said:

.... you need a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Fortunately, most of us have one. It is the Shop Vac. ....

.

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Great idea. I've been using a pressurized water fire extinguisher- enabled me to stand 25' away and soak the nest, which eventually falls down. Gets rid of most of the wasps, but not all of them. Hafta stay away from that spot for a couple days, then chuck the remains of the nest, whereas the shopvac gets rid of all of 'em.

Neil

We have digger wasps here, a quart of diesel down the hole is usually more than enough to take care of the problem.

If you have been wondering just what WD-40 is good for..... it will nuke wasps, bees, etc.... and seems to smell bad enough that pretty much all the other critters will stay away from the dead wasps.

A little cup of gasoline after dark when all wasps are back at the nest. Works everytime.

JH

Lol love this blog.

Read this thread old this morning, we took the day off from the shop and my helper was weed eating outside. I heard a yell and saw him out front (he had been behind the shop) swatting at a few insects around his head. Turned out to be Africanized (killer) bees. I called him to the front to of the shop and blew the bees off with the air hose there. The bees would return and try to sting him again. Not one landed on me next to him. He kept brushing them out of his hair and the kept coming back. Very scary!
I called up a fellow fireman and he brought over an emergency bee hood and gloves. Suited up in wildland fire gear with the hood and gloves and went after the nest with a siphon air nozzle and a mixture of Permethrin and soapy water. the siphon air nozzle was the right tool for the job, it makes an intensely wet fog sever feet in diameter about 5 feet in the front, wets everything in its path.
I keep Permethrin here to spray our cattle. deadly to insects and does not hurt mammals. After you spay a herd you will have as much spray on you as any one cow.
Just a few observations on killer bees, they do attack in mass, they are excited by the smell of their venom or reaction of the victim, getting them out of the hair is hard even when you get the victim inside the few stragglers sought him out and found him in the 3600 square foot shop. Sammy only had a couple of dozen bees on him, but they can attack in hundreds or thousands. If this happens you will need EMS and a helicopter in a hurry!

Just need the right man for the job:
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Doesn't kill them, relocates and supplies a European queen bee and presto! you're in the honey biz. Finds time for a lot of other stuff too.