Phillips removes massive yellowjacket nest; video gets 800K views

Bobby Phillips of Phillip’s Pest Control in Opp is something of a Facebook sensation after a video of him taking down a massive yellowjacket nest two weeks ago went viral.

Phillips said that the yellowjacket nest was the biggest one that he and his father have ever seen.

“I’d say that it was about six to eight feet across, and six to eight feet tall,” Phillips said. “My dad has been in this business for 42 years and has never seen anything this big.”

His reaction to seeing the next can be heard in the video. “That’s a good ‘un, now,” he said.

The nest was in a horse barn near Red Level. Yellowjackets typically build nests in the ground, but Phillips said he believes this one started between bales of hay last season, which insulated them through the winter months.

“The yellow jackets probably got in between the hay bales and just had time to build it up,” Phillips said. “If they started last year on it I can see how it got that big in such a quick time.”

Phillips sprayed the entire nest and surrounding yellow jackets with pesticide, but warned the barn owners to wait a few days to let it sit and kill all of the yellow jackets before going back in.

“The poison that we used was not immediate kill, because there were worker yellow jackets that were not in the nest that would come back, so with the residual poison it would last until they came back and they would die,” Phillips said.

After breaking up the nest, he advised the owners to completely destroy the hay.

“We sprayed that pesticide on the hay as well,” Phillips said. “So they will need to destroy that so the horses don’t get in it.”

Phillips has been in business since 1999, and takes care of all types of pests.

“We can take care of anything that bugs you,” Phillips said. “We also do home inspections as well.”

The original video has more than 800,000 views. and Phillips plans to post more videos after having such a successful first attempt.

“I definitely plan on doing more,” Phillips said. “My 12 year old daughter Mackenzie Phillips knows a lot more about editing videos than me so I’m going to have her edit all of my videos, and I’ll have my dad be the camera man.”

Phillips said that the response from the community about the video has been amazing.

“We have gotten a great response,” Phillips said. “We got a call the other day about another huge yellow jacket nest under a trailer, so we made a video about that and already have another 62,000 views on that one. We are just so thankful to the Lord.”