Yellow Jackets Swarming Ants

A cloud of yellow jackets gathered and swiftly attacked, killed, and ate dozens of ants. The massacre was over in minutes. Life and death right there in my front yard. The ebb and flow of nature that I unwittingly contributed to.

The other day while clearing old wood from my yard I disturbed several colonies of what were probably red carpenter ants or possibly thatching ants. I was out at the River House, my dream home on the Upper Wenatchee River outside of the village of Plain near Leavenworth, Washington. Clearing brush was an on-going process, and I was cleaning up more debris as I regretfully had to sell the house.

There were piles of punky old timber rounds, “punky” meaning wood too rotten to burn. My lawnmower was acting up even with a new spark plug. I feared all my abusing it as a bush hog out there in the shaggy weeds and wild grass had all but killed it. As it sat there simmering in silent revolt I piled up brush, sticks, and punky rounds in a burn pile. I figured with the burn ban in effect it would be around mid-November before I could safely set it afire. Meanwhile, dozens of yellow jackets buzzed low over grass and weeds. They completely ignored me and appeared focused on hunting edible bugs.

It was the last day of August 2009. Temperatures have risen from the upper 50s into the low 80s. Wasn’t too bad. Drank plenty of water and Gatorade. Seems like every time I turn over and broke up rotten segments of logs hordes of big red and black ants charged out in all directions. At first I jumped back, as the ants resembled in appearance thatching ants. There was a huge colony of such ants over on the edge of a neighboring property where they’ve build a large mound. They eat lots of pests so are considered good for gardens, but build big mounds, bite hard, and spray a burning acid where they bite. But there were no mounds, just nests in the wood, so maybe they were red carpenter ants instead. I wasn’t about to stick my bare hand in and find out, so I quickly tossed the broken wood across the yard to knock the critters lose before chunking it into the burn pile.

Even though carpenter ants are big and fierce looking, they don’t bite and burn like thatching ants. But they can be more destructive by tunneling through wood as they build their nests. Apparently they don’t eat wood, contrary to popular misconceptions, just tunnel through it. Such tunneling in turns seriously weakens any wooden structures. Eventually if left untreated the wood disintegrates and structures may collapse.

Ah, more of the damn things. Seems like every time I move an old timber round or section of abandoned firewood I stir up these big red and black ants. The sheer mass of them swarming is just amazing. Sheer biological mass. Animal mass. Insect mass. Upon a mass of plants and plant material. Biomass. Life on the planet. Right here right now. Swarming, moving, or growing quietly in the soil and blowing in the breeze. Life.

I threw another ant infested chunk of old log into the burn pile. Looked like hundreds of pissed off ants from several disturbed hives were swarming over and around the burn pile. I gazed at the wind blowing the tall ponderosas for a few minutes, admiring their graceful yet robust trunks. I felt sad at what appeared to be the spread of pine beetle infestations, especially the regional explosion of natural western and mountain pine beetle populations. They eventually overwhelm and kill trees. Glanced back to look at my small burn pile, and did a double take.

Yellow jackets were swarming over the burn pile and dive bombing ants. They hunted, pounced upon, and killed ants. The yellow jackets were eating them. Voraciously and as quickly as they could. It was a mad race against the clock, for the ants were running as fast as they could scurry. They weren’t even fighting back. Just trying to hide and survive. They slid between cracks in the wood or disappeared under debris. Here it was right here under my eyes as I stood spellbound: life and death, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, and fast.

And then it was over as quickly as it had begun. The ants had vanished. I imagined most of them survived because there were far more of them than there were of the wasps. The yellow jackets returned to their silent cruising low over the yard.

How did the yellow jackets know of the ants and their situation? What did the yellow jackets do to communicate so quickly and efficiently with other wasps? And how did ants from different colonies all mixed together like that react or respond to one another while under attack? I felt a mix of remorse and wonder. And went back to my work. Life goes on for the living.

William Dudley Bass
September 15, 2009

© by William Dudley Bass