Gnat larva in soil?

[Garbage_bear]

So my last grow in the 8x8 tent went horrible. I had to chop early. Gnats just exploded. I put sticky traps and killed hundreds of them. I’ve been treating the soil with bacillus from general hydroponics.

Well my wife said there is probably larva in the soil but she said I cannot but any more soil cause we can’t afford it at this time.

So what can I do to save this soil? Living soil. I am letting the dirt fully dry out with fans but I still see gnats when I go in there. Not many but they still there! I’m not growing in there at the moment. I have a bunch of Jager plants that will need to go in that tent in the next month or so.

What can I do to save this soil and make sure I don’t have gnats again? Oh and here is a picture of Mark Zuckerberg surfing for your pleasure:

 

[BlueCollarBob]

The bees are not yellow jackets.....

Ground bees are generally docile native bees that nest in the soil, while yellow jackets are aggressive social wasps (a type of vespid) that often take over abandoned rodent burrows or other voids underground, leading people to mistakenly call them "ground bees" due to their shared nesting location. The key difference: Ground bees are usually solitary, hairy, and less noticeable; yellow jackets are sleek, bright yellow/black, build paper nests, and fiercely defend large colonies, often swarming if disturbed.

I'm thinking all bees will become mean if you disturb their homes...........I've tried everything from gasoline, wasp spray, DE as I mentioned, but what is most effective is just watering the area- they don't like to come out if it's wet. I also use insect granules, and some work while others don't. Anything with bT works really well though.

I get the same sense as you about all bees defending their homes when disturbed.

I haven't come across any lone bees that live in the ground. That's interesting. Sounds like they be harder to get rid of since they aren't conveniently piled up in the a single nest. Do they look like honey bees?

Aside from yellow jackets, another flying, stinging insect we have in our area looks like a bumble bee. I don't know what their real identity is. They are bigger than honey bees and are green instead of yellow. I've never looked at them closely. At a glance, these ground bumble bees, wood boring bees, and bumble bees in our area look similar. The second hardest hitting stinging event I've experience came from these guys (first was what I call white-faced hornets, but I don't know if that's accurate). The "ground bumble bees" got me years ago when I was tilling a garden at our last home. I didn't know they were there. They hit hard. First one got me and I paused tilling. Second one sent me running for the house. I didn't even stop to cut off the tiller. They pursued me the whole way. I think I got stung 5 or 6 times. No fun. Worse than a yellow jacket. Produced good welts, but nothing debilitating. Luckily, I've never had allergic reactions to stinging insects. I remember looking them up afterwards, but only remember reading that skunks are their natural predator.

The hornets had built a nest in the gas vent on our camper. I didn't know they were there either, but I didn't disturb them. I was just walking past their nest at a distance of around 5 feet. Those suckers pursued me, too. It felt like someone was Physically hitting me with a switch. It's still hard for me to understand how something so small can hit so hard.

 

[SSHZ]

This is why I recommended the Venerate......used as a flush in the medium, it does a thorough job of killing all eggs, larvae and any insects that might be in there too......it's perfectly harmless to human after application. Just make sure you apply enough to run thru the pots.........

The bees were not yellow jackets, just some nondescript bees that will sting if provoked........they swarm like crazy though, especially when it's hot and sunny out. Cloudy and cool or wet weather, you don't see one. The have dug 1000's of hole and borrows in a hill by the road and it's about 6 x 40 yards in size, so it's no small space.