Dear readers, I stand corrected. Apparently the winged warriors I wrote about two weeks ago are not bees; they’re yellow jackets. At least that’s what several people have told me, based on the fact that the swarm of stinging insects are holed up in what appears to be an underground soil cavity in my raspberry patch.

I tried to find out online exactly what is plaguing our place this summer and was left confused. It does seem our particular colony is yellow jackets, which apparently are actually wasps. But there are German wasps, Eastern yellow jackets, Southern yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets. And don’t forget tree wasps.

Whatever the species, they’re not afraid to sting if you get in their way. When the numbers of these venomous creatures seemed to escalate in the garden, I did what any red-blooded coward would do.

We went on vacation.

I had hoped upon our return a week later that these nasty creatures had taken what they wanted of our garden and moved on. Not a chance. Instead, they called in reinforcements, as I found out when I watered the grapes. Once again, I found myself high-tailing it away from the swarm that arose from behind the cover of the grape leaves.

Many of you emailed or called with home remedies of how to get rid of these nasty insects, and I’ve since had some marginal success. I’ve been crunched for time, but it’s time to buckle down and destroy!

One woman said she bought an entire bee suit, including the hat with mesh enclosure, that she dons for garden work. It’s hot and claustrophobic, she admitted, but “a worthwhile investment even if I look like I just landed from a space ship.”

I haven’t gone to that extreme just yet.

The remedies from readers have been wide-ranging, from pouring boiling water into their nest when they’re asleep to soaking burlap bags with diesel fuel and covering the nest.

One of the most comical but apparently effective ideas came from an Echo Lake resident who had gone through 12 cans of spray with no sign of reducing the number of pests. She made what she called a “Red Neck Bee Trap.” It involves nailing a hot dog or other meat to a board, then flipping the hot dog-laden board on top of a bucket filled with dish soap and water. The winged creatures gorge themselves on the meat and then fall into the soapy water. She sent a photo of the bucket of dead insects as proof it works. I haven’t gone that route just yet, either.

Another gal made an “Old Finnish Hornet Trap” for me out of a plastic pop bottle. That seems to be working fairly well, though I probably need to make a dozen more.

Gardener extraordinaire Bill Clanton dropped off some information from his book on local gardening about how to control yellow jackets, and it makes a lot of sense.

Since the fertilized queen yellow jacket is the only one that survives the Montana winter — and she lays up to 80,000 eggs — the trick is to catch the queen early, Bill noted. He puts out a number of yellow jacket traps around his yards on the first warm days of spring.

“When summer comes — no yellow jackets,” he wrote. The year after he first put out the traps he caught very few queens and workers and was worried the traps weren’t working. Then it dawned on him the only yellow jackets in his yard most likely were those that had drifted in from the neighbors because he had destroyed the queens.

So it seems an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure once again. I have my game plan for next spring now, if I can just survive the rest of the summer.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.