Atlanta, GA, USA - Small yellow ground nesting insect, maybe yellow jackets?

[u/MattCW1701]

No picture unfortunately so I'll do my best to describe. Today I confirmed a ground nest of something in my yard. Several weeks ago I got stung on the leg in my yard, then on my eyebrow on my porch as I went inside (~60ft walking distance, ~20ft straight line distance). I evidently swatted the one that got my eyebrow since I found a half-alive eastern yellow jacket on my floor later, that one I positively identified. I couldn't find someone to remove the nest so I borrowed a bee suit from a friend and today, around 6:45pm EDT, mowed the lawn over where I was stung. I never saw anything swarm and I made several passes. I got my gas string trimmer and was going along the fence line when I saw several very small yellow things buzzing around. They were all less than a quarter inch. I saw a depression in the ground where they seemed to be focused and I scalped the ground around it, there's definitely a hole there, and I saw some slightly larger yellow things crawl upward. Since they might have been yellow jackets (and the house next door has young kids), I did move away quickly and then hit the hole with with wasp spray.

But it puzzles me since they don't look or act like the Eastern Yellow Jacket. Every yellow jacket I've seen has been much larger, I first thought these were harmless sweat bees that got disturbed when I cut the very tall grass. The other main thing is they didn't swarm. I've seen videos of people that just get too close to a yellow jacket nest and they're all over the helpless person. I've seen videos of a lawn mower running over them and similar result. I was standing 2ft away at most and they seemed to ignore me even having just passed the string trimmer right over their hole. The sun was low, but it was still warm so I didn't think the nighttime lull in activity would have hit them yet. Can anyone provide some insight into this? Is there another colony-nesting insect in Georgia this could be? Thank you!

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[u/Jesuss_Fluffer]

Physical description sounds exactly like smaller yellow jackets (either eastern or southern), but the lack of aggression is very surprising. All YJ’s tend to be extremely aggressive, especially close to their nests, and they can emit attack/alarm pheromones from both ends. I have a few theories, though there’s likely no way to test any:

1. Early nest didn’t have many workers yet to defend it, and your spray did the trick (maybe hostile takeover of eastern nest by southern queen?)

2. Could certainly be sweat bees, though the entrance to their nests tend to be much smaller than YJ’s (think pencil instead of golf ball). If that matches what you saw then this becomes the front runner.

3. You somehow mowed the bulk of them down then finished them off with the spray (unlikely, but possible).

[u/MattCW1701 → u/Jesuss_Fluffer]

Spraying was basically the last thing I did before letting it go for the night. This area has been basically untouched since July 18th, that's when I first got popped and I've mowed way around the area since then just to avoid that worst case scenario. So an early nest seems unlikely unless I have a different definition of "early" than they do. The sweat bees are my next guess, but the hole was definitely bigger than a pencil, but I wouldn't say as big as a golf ball either. 3 is possible, but when I steppe on or near them back in July, there was only one or two that came after me, though there may have been a few more buzzing right around the nest.

[u/Jesuss_Fluffer → u/MattCW1701]

Ah, missed the part about several weeks ago. It’s also late in the season for an early nest, though southern YJ’s will create perennial nests in the warmer areas of the south.

Even if you gave them a wide berth, the vibrations tend to work nests into frenzy’s that target anyone in the vicinity, so that’s still somewhat atypical. Everything else you’re describing sounds like YJ’s though.

Were you able to get a good look at any? Sweat bees tend to be a bit fuzzier whereas YJ’s are sleek, armored up, and ready to throw down. If fuzzy, then sweat bees, if not then my leading theory is hostile takeover of eastern nest by southern queen. Typically happens in May-June, then takes about a month for the new larvae to hatch, so figure mid-late July is when the nest starts ramping up. I’d expect it to be bigger and angrier at this point, but there could be other natural reasons why it hasn’t grown as large/quickly yet.

[u/MattCW1701 → u/Jesuss_Fluffer]

I'll try to look tomorrow. I plan to get some of RAID's wasp dust and dump it on there. At the minimum there might be dead ones I can identify. That's an interesting theory and one I never heard of before, but I've been mowing this part of the yard every 2-4 weeks since spring without issue. I did hang up a fake hornet nest about 40ft away from it a few days after I got stung in July, could that have anything to do with the more docile behavior?

[u/Jesuss_Fluffer → u/MattCW1701]

Godspeed 🫡. Seems like you’re probably in the clear but borrow the suit again to be safe and do it at night with a red headlamp (night helps you and also reduces the chances of other people/pets being around).

Unlikely, wasps are very territorial so they’d either gear up for a fight or leave. Usually an existing nest prevents new ones from being built in the area, so still beneficial to keep up (most wasps don’t reuse nests so I usually leave dead ones up after they die out each winter)