REGARDING Where are the yellow jackets? Dave Green wrote a rather detailed post (8/30/96) about recognizing the German yellow jacket, which is usually an annoying pest around our honey houses this time of the year. I say "usually" because this year I haven't had a single one bothering me or my hives. I can't believe it! Last year, when I had a mite catastrophe in the making, not only was my honey house overridded with these insects (I had my "bug light" on continuously and had the scorched critters drop directly into a trash can underneath it), but they got into dying hives to hasten the demise of mite infested colonies which would no longer defend themselves. This year nothing at all. I even put my extracted supers into the apiary for the bees to clean out, and not even these has attracted a yellow jacket, to my knowledge. What is going on? Is this unique to my area (southeastern Michigan)? Not that I mind it, to be sure, but it really has gotten my curiosity up. I wonder if the varroa mite has invaded the yellow jackets. This is kind of far-fetched, but what could have happened to cause such a radical population crash, the likes of which I have never seen before? Maybe it was the harsh winter we had last year (but we have had such winters before). Any other yellow jacket experiences out there? Ted Fischer