Said It Here

Why won't a ground nest of yellow jackets die?

Standard treatments like dust, foam, and soapy water fail to eradicate large underground yellow jacket nests because they don't reach the entire colony or the queen deep below. This leaves aggressive wasps continuing to use the entrance hole daily, preventing homeowners from safely using their yard.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    applying Sevin dust
  2. 2
    pouring hot water with dish soap into the hole
  3. 3
    using expanding foam ground nest spray
  4. 4
    Using soapy water
  5. 5
    Using Raid
  6. 6
    Using Sevin dust

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/Pestcontrol2 people · September 2026

“There is a large ground nest of yellow jackets in my yard. They stung me about 8 times while mowing the lawn and also stung my neighbor a couple times.”source ↗

“Every day the wasps continue coming and going in the same entrance hole like nothing happened”source ↗

“I am trying to avoid using gasoline etc. Any other ideas?”source ↗

Kargaroc · r/Pestcontrol · 1 upvotes

“We have two Yellowjacket ground nest at our house. Both nests are located right along the house so I can’t put gasoline and light them up.”source ↗

“We have tried soapy water, raid, and sevin dust and nothing has worked.”source ↗

“The bees are super mean and have attacked us and our child so it’s a priority to get them gone asap.”source ↗

According_Stay503 · r/Pestcontrol · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

r/Pestcontrolinsectslawn carepest control

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