A ground nest is any nest built in or on the soil, and the creature responsible could be a bee, a wasp, a bird, or even a rodent. About 70% of all bee species nest underground, and yellowjackets are the most common ground-nesting wasps in North America. Identifying what made the nest is the critical first step, because some ground nests are harmless (even beneficial) while others pose a real sting risk.
How to Tell What Made the Nest
The entrance hole and surrounding soil are your best clues. Ground-nesting bees typically create a small mound of excavated dirt with a single hole in the center, roughly pencil-width. You’ll often see dozens of these mounds clustered in the same patch of bare or thin-grassed soil, each belonging to an individual bee. Some species, like miner bees, build small turrets of clay around their entrance holes, giving them a chimney-like appearance. These bees prefer well-drained soils, clay banks, hillsides, and road cuts.
Yellowjacket nests look different. The entrance is usually a single hole in the ground, often a repurposed rodent burrow, with little to no visible soil mound. You’ll notice a steady stream of wasps flying in and out in a direct line, especially on warm afternoons. The colony underground can house thousands of individuals by late summer, so the traffic pattern is the giveaway.
Cicada killers are another ground-nesting wasp that alarms people because they’re enormous, sometimes over an inch and a half long. Their burrows produce a U-shaped mound of loose soil, and you’ll find them in sandy, sun-exposed areas like flower beds and sidewalk edges. Despite their intimidating size, they’re solitary wasps and far less dangerous than yellowjackets.
Ground-nesting birds like killdeer don’t dig holes at all. They scrape a shallow depression into bare ground, gravel, or short grass, typically 3 to 3.5 inches across. Killdeer are famous for nesting in driveways, parking lots, athletic fields, and flat rooftops. After egg-laying begins, they often decorate the scrape with light-colored pebbles, shell fragments, and sticks. If a bird runs away from you while dragging a wing and calling loudly, you’ve likely found a killdeer nest.
Ground-Nesting Bees Are Gentle Pollinators
If you’ve found small dirt mounds with bees calmly coming and going, you’re almost certainly looking at solitary ground-nesting bees. Miner bees, sweat bees, and mining bees are non-aggressive and typically do not sting or bite. They have no hive to defend the way honeybees or yellowjackets do. Each female digs her own tunnel, lines the walls with a waxy secretion to waterproof it, then provisions individual cells with a pollen mixture before laying a single egg in each one.
The larvae hatch after about five days, spend roughly three weeks eating the pollen stores and cell lining, then overwinter underground in a resting stage. Come spring, they pupate and emerge as adults about two weeks later. The whole visible season for most ground-nesting bees lasts only four to six weeks.
These bees are extremely valuable pollinators. Both males and females forage for nectar, making them more efficient at pollination than species where only one sex visits flowers. They’re generalists that visit a wide range of wildflowers, garden plants, and crops. Their tunneling also loosens and aerates compacted soil. If you can coexist with them, leaving ground-nesting bees alone is the best choice for your garden and local ecosystem.
Yellowjackets: The Nest That Needs Attention
Yellowjacket ground nests are a different situation entirely. These are social wasps that build large paper colonies underground, and they will aggressively defend the nest if disturbed. The classic encounter happens in August or September when someone runs a lawnmower over a hidden nest. Colonies start small in spring when a single queen builds from scratch, then grow through the summer and reach peak size in late summer, sometimes containing several thousand workers.
The good news is that yellowjacket colonies are annual. The entire colony dies after the first hard frosts in fall. Only a small number of newly mated queens survive the winter, sheltering in rotting logs and other protected spots to start new colonies the following spring. If the nest is in an out-of-the-way corner of your yard and you can avoid it, waiting for cold weather is the simplest solution.
Removing a Yellowjacket Ground Nest Safely
If the nest is near a walkway, play area, or anywhere people regularly pass, removal is warranted. Timing matters: always approach a ground nest after dark, when the wasps are inside and cooler temperatures reduce their activity. Wear long sleeves, pants, gloves, and a head covering.
The most effective approach for homeowners is to fill the entrance with fine, dry sand at night. Another method involves applying an insecticidal dust (not a spray) into the nest entrance, then plugging the hole with steel wool. Dust formulations work better than liquid sprays for underground nests because they coat returning wasps and get carried deeper into the colony.
One critical warning: never pour gasoline into a ground nest. This is a persistent piece of bad advice that creates a serious fire hazard, contaminates soil, kills surrounding vegetation, and poses a greater danger to people and pets than the yellowjackets themselves. If a nest is large or in a difficult location, calling a pest management professional is the safer route.
Cicada Killers Look Scary but Aren’t
Cicada killers are the wasps most often mistaken for “giant yellowjackets.” They can be nearly two inches long with bold yellow and black markings. Despite their appearance, they’re solitary, and each female digs her own burrow to provision with paralyzed cicadas for her larvae.
Most of the cicada killers you see buzzing around a nesting area are males. They patrol aggressively, hovering in front of faces and dive-bombing passersby, but males physically cannot sting. Females have stingers but don’t defend their burrows and will only sting if you grab one. If cicada killer burrows are causing cosmetic damage to a lawn or garden bed, watering more frequently and thickening the turf will discourage them, since they prefer dry, sandy, sparsely vegetated soil.
Protecting Ground-Nesting Birds
Killdeer and other ground-nesting birds like nighthawks, some sparrows, and shorebirds lay their eggs directly on the ground in shallow scrapes. Killdeer clutches typically contain four to six eggs, and incubation lasts 22 to 28 days. The eggs are speckled and blend remarkably well with gravel and soil, making them easy to accidentally step on or mow over.
Ground-nesting birds in North America are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which means disturbing an active nest is illegal. If you find one in an inconvenient spot (killdeer are notorious for choosing driveways and construction sites), mark the area with small flags or stones and give it a wide berth until the chicks hatch and leave. Killdeer chicks are precocial, meaning they can walk and feed themselves within hours of hatching, so the disruption to your yard is temporary.
Preventing Unwanted Ground Nests
Yellowjackets don’t dig their own burrows. They move into abandoned rodent holes, so filling in chipmunk and mouse burrows during spring and early summer removes their preferred real estate. Inspect your yard before the first mow of the season and periodically through summer, especially along fence lines, garden borders, and slopes where rodent activity is common.
For ground-nesting bees and wasps that prefer bare soil, maintaining thick, healthy turf and regular irrigation makes the ground less attractive. Mulching garden beds also discourages nesting. That said, if the bees in question are native pollinators, consider leaving a patch of undisturbed bare ground for them somewhere on your property. The pollination benefits to your garden can be substantial, and they’ll be gone in a few weeks.