Skip to main content

DJI Mavic Mini versus hornets video shows drone besting bugs

In another example of the ways drones are being used in rapidly diversifying missions, an amateur pilot has uploaded a video demonstrating his deployment of a DJI Mavic Mini to rid his yard of a hornets’ nest. Though the operation wasn’t quick, clean, or easy, the tech eventually prevailed over pests – ish.

The nearly 11-minute video was uploaded by YouTube contributor Dripped after discovering the nest in a tree while doing yard work. Rather than shelling out what he said were thousands of dollars in fees in professional estimates he’d solicited, the occasional pilot decided to dust off his DJI Mavic Mini and find out if the drone was up to the task of sending the bald-faced hornets packing. It was, mostly, but the time and risks it took may have offset the money saved by the DIY extermination technique.

Read: Bzzz: Japan-built drone vacuums dangerous wasp nests 

While specialized companies that have adapted drones with mini lances and suction devices to break up hornets’ nests and vacuum up their seriously cheesed-off residents, Dripped instead used his Mavic Mini as a DJI saw to gradually – ever so gradually – shred the communal home apart. Indeed, although the video doesn’t provide the total duration of the eradication operation, what began as a daytime task extended to dusk, and was eventually completed under artificial lighting at night.

But when it was finally over, the dirty, hornet guts-caked DJI drone hovered triumphant, the only thing lacking to celebrate the victory being a “Mission Accomplished” banner behind the indestructible Mavic Mini.

Assisted by his wife, Dripped initially operated the craft from within his house as he assailed the nest with repeated UAV strikes. That position – and operation of the craft between leafy tree branches – made “the drone view almost totally unusable” for navigating purposes, he said. It did, however, afford him protection of hornets that quickly went into what he called “war mode,” until the fall of night led him to pilot the craft beneath the tree.

As the marathon mission slogged on, Dripped realized ramming the nest from the front was far less effective that bumping it from below – while striking it at the top was disaster, causing three different crashes.

Yet despite those – and, astonishingly, use of the Mavic Mini’s very propellers as demolition devices – the DJI craft came through grotty but entirely intact, something that cannot be said of the hornets sliced and diced in the effort.

ReadAeroPest positions wasp-culling drone for broader applications 

Because something about its construction made the top portion of the nest too difficult for even the spinning props to destroy, the coup de grace was delivered by a jerry-rigged, pole-fixed lasso that ripped the remaining bit of the atomized abode to the ground. Still, Dripped ends the video hailing the Mavic Mini’s triumph over the invasive hornets, thereby providing another product feature DJI may now add to the drone’s list of capabilities.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading DroneDJ — experts who break news about DJI and the wider drone ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow DroneDJ on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Comments

Author

Avatar for Bruce Crumley Bruce Crumley

Bruce Crumley is journalist and writer who has worked for Fortune, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, The Guardian, AFP, and was Paris correspondent and bureau chief for Time magazine specializing in political and terrorism reporting. He splits his time between Paris and Biarritz, and is the author of novel Maika‘i Stink Eye.