I'll Huff And I'll Puff - UPDATE

Here is an update to my previous post back on Wednesday, July 24 titled, "I'll Huff And I'll Puff" -

So, I thought it unusual that after only a couple of days the yellow jackets stopped swarming around their access hole into the wall of my living room.  The first couple of days there were oodles of them flying and buzzing around the area, then there were none.  Also, around the same time, I was no longer finding bees inside my living room. Foolishly, I thought I had won but oh contraire!

While doing some grilling out on my deck this past Saturday I once again spied bees coming and going from the side of my chimney!  However, THIS time they were doing so on the deck side of the chimney, which is the exact opposite side of where their original access hole was!

Those sons-of-bitches found another way in AND out, UGH!

The good news is I have easy peasy access to this new spot with plenty of room to run if necessary 😉.

This time around, I chose to grab my Craftsman shop-vac and using the extension pieces I was able to stand at a safe distance while holding the hose end just below their access hole.  Let me tell you, it was the funniest things to see the returning yellow jackets flying towards the hole AND WOOSH down the hose and into the shop-vac they went!  I stood there for a while, in the hot sun, holding that hose and counting each bee that got sucked up!  I stopped and moved on when I hit 40!

Later that evening, after dark, I performed the same steps I had on the original hole and stuffed cotton balls soaked in bee spray into the holes, then blocked them to prevent access.

There are two holes in the below pic that they were using -

In the pic below, the red left arrow shows where the original hole was and the blue right arrow, opposite, is where their new holes were -

This first video below shows the bees coming and going into and out of the new holes - 

Yellow Jackets entering and exiting

And this video below is poor Trixie limping along after being stung in her left paw, the poor thing!  She was minding her own business, napping next in her bed when all of a sudden she sprung up and ran towards me.  She didn't yelp or cry or whine, not a peep but I knew immediately what just happened and saw her holding her paw up, which still had the bee attached!  Since a single yellow jacket is able to keep stinging and stinging and stinging, I don't know if she was stung more than once but flicked the dude off and squashed it.  I don't think Trixie knew what happened but she was hobbled for most of the afternoon.

Trixie limping after being stung in paw

Although, like the first time, the bee activity has but ended.  There has been a couple outside still trying to get in and I'm still finding one or two here and there inside the house but hopeful I eliminated them this go around, time will tell...