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The last few days, I have seen a lot of them in my yard.  First time I have seen that many in years.

Depends.  Is your yard mostly clover?   :dunno: :dielaughing:

I suggest you adopt a honey badger. :biggrin:

Nope, they're still declining at alarming rates and it's still bad news for agricultural interests. But the mild winter and warm spring have helped populations rebound a little this year, thus they're showing up in greater numbers, and earlier.

My husband raises honey bees.  They are a sensitive lot.  We have lost hives to moths and foul brood.  I think everyone should have a hive or two in their back yard.  We just harvested 5 gallons of honey last weekend.

The yard Nazis would have a coronary if I had honey bee hives in my back yard!!

My 9 year old little girl would love that; my 16 year old boy would be scared to leave the house.

It is my experience that yellow jackets, unfortunately, are not declining at alarming rates.  :doh:

My 12 year old stepson loves it - has a bee suit and works with his dad.  My 15 year old stepson doesn't go near them.  In 5 years I have never been stung...I can't say the same for my dogs.  :biggrin:

Why?  Honey bees are relatively docile unless you mess with their hive - my dogs like to eat the comb and they tried to turn a hive over once...they steer clear of that corner now.  Our neighborhood has the best gardens around  :cool:

Ain't that the truth? I have quite a few fruit trees and that encourages yellow jacket infestations. On years when fruit crops are bountiful, I usually have to gas four or five nests in my yard. It seems like I stumble into at least one nest every year. A few years ago I found the first nest on July 4th weekend. As warm as this spring has been I dread seeing how early they'll show up this year.

If there's anything that hurts like a few yellow jacket stings, I've yet to experience it and don't want to.

My dog got stung on the ear once.  He has floppy ears anyway, and that thing swelled up to the thickness of a pork chop.  He went around for the next two days with his head tilted to the right because the ear on that side was that much heavier. :laugh:

a couple years ago my sons dog got stung on the upper lip area. She swoll up huge and all I could think of was the sinister grin that The Jker had from Batman. It was funny but I felt bad for her and gave her benidryle and she was fine.

When I was a teenager, I worked at a service station and one day was sitting outside drinking a Mt Dew waiting for a customer to drive in for gas.  I took a swig of the Mt Dew and a Yellow jacket had crawled in it.  Sucker stung me on the tongue before I could spit him out.  Talk about pain.  :wow:

Ouch!  :wow:

Found my first yellow jacket nest today...in May. Crazy early. It's gonna be a long summer of mowing.

My father has two bee hives in Knoxville and loves it.  I hope they don't keep declining, that could be bad.