Saturday, July 30, 2011

Homeschool family 1...Bald-Faced Hornets 0

Earlier this week I discovered a large bald-face hornet's nest in my front hedge.  Last night the end came to these painful pests.  As soon as it was dark I went outside and the sprayed the dickens out of the nest.  Today I cut it out of the hedge and the kids and I dissected it.  After all, don't all homeschoolers turn things like these into learning experiences?

Nest in Hedge right before cutting it out


Ready to Dissect.  Look at how big that thing is!



Dead Adults litter the bottom.  The Larvae were still alive and writhing around on the bottom and in the cells.


The nest had 3 completed sections of cells and they had started building a 4th section.  These were the cells capped off for the larvae to become adults.

 Over all though dealing with the hornets before spraying was scary and having the larvae still wriggling around had a definite ick-factor I would say this was definitely a learning experience none of us will soon forget.  That said I hope that I never find another hornet's nest in the hedge again!