Unwanted guests!
 

This is one of the most perfectly constructed nests I've ever seen.

However, it's in my backyard and only five feet off the ground. Both cats have been stung. The dog has nearly been stung. I have cans of wasp and hornet killer but I don't know if I can safely stand in one spot long enough to spray enough of it into the single entrance/exit without getting nailed. I could probably get the whole nest with 2 blasts from the over/under 12 GA but I'm within the city limits and "begging forgiveness" probably isn't an option.

Any suggestions for getting rid of it? Smoke? Pressure washer? M-80 and a slingshot?

Thanks.

I had the same issue and did a run by, spayed above the hole for a three count and took off runnng.

A few hours later there were still some so did it again. I think you would be wise to do it at night but I wanted to be able to see the nest which was mostly inside a bush but looks exactly like yours. I’ve found you need to kill them all or the remaining ones rebuild.

Some of the sprays say they will spray up to 25 feet.

Good luck!

Do it at night. Start at the entrance and soak the nest with the spray.

When I was in high school, a large nest suddenly appeared in the tree in front of a neighbors house. My brother and I hung around with two of the boys in the family, and we were out admiring it from a distance one evening in the summer. As you might think, the subject came up of who could hit it with these golf ball sized berries that grew on the bushes in their front yard. The hornets had to know something was up when they saw us loading up on these things, but they left us alone. I let everyone else have a shot before I hit it dead center with my first throw. The hornets were not thrilled and came out to let us know, but by then we'd run laughing up the street. We were heading up to the bridge one street over when the older brother of our two friends came by in his van with his girlfriend and beeped. We kept walking for a few seconds before it hit me that they were heading to the house. We took off running back down the hill, hoping to make it back in time to warn them off, but as we got to the top of the street in the church parking lot, we heard his girlfriend scream. One of the hornets got her in the arm. The older brother was pissed, and I took the blame, but he wasn't interested in decking me like I'd have been in the same situation. They left almost immediately, and their Dad gave us a look and went into the garage. He came out with a bag of liquid, and a stick with rags on top. The bag was an enema bag and it was filled with gas. He fired the stream at the nest and hit it good on the first squeeze. Quite impressive, actually. He took the rest of the gas and soaked the rags on the stick, lit it, and touched it to the nest, which went up like it was made of gas soaked paper. :rolleyes: Hornets came out, trying to fly, but crashing to the grass as their wings burned away. For about a week afterwards the neighborhood smelled of gas, and the scar in the tree lasted the rest of the summer.

I grew up in a rural area about 5 miles south of the town I now live in.
We literally used 12ga and 10ga shotguns for such infestations, after soaking with long-range wasp sprays.
Some of the wasp sprays are better than others.
Ortho brand USED to be king with REAL organophosphorus NERVE AGENT chemicals. Naturally the mamby-pamby enviro-WHACKOS oútlawed that.

We had a similarly-sized nest a few years ago. I had no insect spray on hand, so I soaked the nest using a sidewalk sprayer on the hose. I figured it gave me a reasonable margin of safety if I had to run. The wasps never came after me, they just hovered around the tree. After a few minutes it got waterlogged enough to fall from being so heavy. It split, and I continued to soak it. Eventually it looked safe enough to get into a trash bag. I’m not sure if many were trapped, but I never saw wasps trying to rebuild in the tree, or on our house. That year. ;)

Put a couple of quarts of gasoline in a pump sprayer, spray the nest down, then throw a match at it....... :D

Tempting...but no. I just paid the house off a year ago.

Thanks everyone. These are some unusual-looking hornets, too. The have NO brown or yellow on them, but rather black bodies with white stripes and white legs.

Might be bald faced hornets (actually wasps).