What’s wrong with having a keg at your high school graduation party?

Paul Lundgren Aug 23, 2009 11 Comments

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Of course, I’m talking about a keg of root beer. What’s wrong with it? Let me tell you.

Wasps love root beer.

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It helps if there’s a leak in the seal of the keg so a puddle forms to attract a lovely wasp pond — a sugary little retirement community that will attract them by the hundreds.

Soon there will be wasps flying around everyone’s heads and landing on the rims of their cups. At first, this annoys people and makes them want to run away and hide in the house.

Eventually, trapping and killing the wasps becomes a fun party game that entertains the guests, making them start to appreciate the whole ridiculous turn of events.

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In the hot sun, they only last about an hour trapped inside a plastic cup. We must have killed about 30 of them that way before the day was through, but the hostess kept throwing them away, preventing an accurate count or photo of the mass carnage.

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11 Comments

Paul Lundgren

about 15 years ago 

This story reminds me of a summer day in 1995, when Barrett Chase and I were hanging out on my back porch. Wasps were driving us nuts. They were apparently attracted by something in the garbage can.

One of us decided it would be a good idea to get out the vacuum cleaner and suck them up one at a time. This turned out to be very fun and an effective way of rounding up an uncountable amount of them.

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Of course, when we were done we had to decide what to do with a vacuum full of live wasps. We wondered if they would escape if we simply left them in there, and we also feared they'd get out of we attempted to remove the bag from the vacuum.

We decided that I should put on a protective suit, then remove the bag and submerge it into a pot of boiling water. This worked out very well.

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And yes, I drove a station wagon with simulated wood grain exterior when I was in college. Stop laughing. You're just jealous.

Barrett Chase

about 15 years ago 

This is a technique I learned from my dad when we eradicated a nest inside the concrete of our back porch. Once again in that situation, I manned the vacuum while he used a trowel to patch the entries and exits of the nest. 

If I remember correctly, you're also wearing a cup. It appears that I, however, am not even wearing shoes. Real smart, Chase. Real smart.

Dan E.

about 15 years ago 

Was Blackie Lawless at the party?

The Big E

about 15 years ago 

Concluding your vacuuming by sucking up a small amount of that wasp-killing foam might eliminate the necessity for a protective suit.  Of course it might also permanently poison your vacuum.  Not to mention it would require actually having the poisonous foam in the first place, in which case you might not be relying on a vacuum for wasp mitigation.

Chester Dark

about 15 years ago 

ummm....what triggered the idea of immersing the vacuum bag into a pot of boiling water? You guys are amazing!

Paul Lundgren

about 15 years ago 

We just figured that once we removed the bag, we'd have to do something quickly or they might escape out of the hole in the bag. Smashing the bag or lighting it on fire seemed like it might also have a high risk of allowing a mass escape. (And the last thing you want is a yard full of angry, flaming wasps.) We figured boiling water would end things quickly and safely.

huitz

about 15 years ago 

A buddy of mine fell asleep in the sun with a glass of homemade margarita.  His nap was only about 15 min, but says that he acquired about 10 wasps, nicely floating in a pool of blissful alcoholic death.  He almost took a sip before realizing.

The ones in the photo look like yellow jackets.  From what I hear, predatory aggressive wasps are also attracted to meat.  We've had some during grilling sessions that were more interested in the steaks than the drinks.

Paul Lundgren

about 15 years ago 

I think what we encountered were paper wasps, but telling the difference between paper wasps and yellowjackets is sort of like telling the difference between the bands Foreigner and Loverboy. I'm not sure there's a difference.

wildgoose

about 15 years ago 

Not even close in my book.  I don't really like either band, but Foreigner has had more hits, bigger impact on pop culture, and a cooler sounding line-up.  Lou Gramm vs. Mike Reno?  Forget about it.  But judge for yourselves:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreigner_%28band%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loverboy

Of note, perhaps only to me.  Speedy Wienie stopped offering Root Beer, in part because it draws so many flies and wasps to the keg.  The other part is I couldn't sell enough, but the bee/wasp/hornets are what really did that item in.  I might bring it back if I could mitigate those little buggers.

mrashley

about 15 years ago 

The wasps remind me of a child hood event when we were about 7-8.  It was late fall and there was what appeared to be a dead wasps nest hanging from a neighbor's garage.  The group was equally split between they were hibernating or they were dead.  The bravest, and stupidest, of the dead wasp theorists took a baseball bat and smashed it down.  Wasps are smart.  Out of the 5-7 of us only the guy with the bat got stung.  Although he ran directly into the side of a house in his efforts to escape.  If I remember right he had to go to the ER and his mom said he couldn't play for a few days.  I have never been stung by a bee, hornet or wasp and I blame my fear of it on this event.

bb

about 15 years ago 

wasps have totally taken over my hummingbird feeder. the hummingbirds have given up.

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