This link is worth clicking simply for the second photo. That’s a lot of yellow jackets:

Wasp sucking machine

Here is a cautionary tale from my childhood. We had a beehive in one of the walls of our house. You could see the bees flying in and out, and there was only one entrance. So some man came to the house and got rid of the bees.

The problem was that the bees had built a huge hive in the wall, and it was full of honey. Without the bees to maintain the hive, the honey started to leak. Eventually it soaked through the drywall and the wallpaper. Imagine how much liquid honey you have to have for it to soak through drywall.

Another crew came to rip out the drywall and replace it. I have no idea what the bill was for this whole process, but it was probably expensive.

This video shows approximately what the hive looked like when they pulled down the drywall (as I recall, our hive also extended into the ceiling):

The moral of this story: The minute you see bees starting a hive in your walls, get rid of them.

[See previous DIY]