Since I was looking up my city's laws regarding the burned house and weeds next door, I found this in the "health and sanitation" section: It shall be unlawful for any person to keep on such person's premises, within the corporate limits or police jurisdiction of the city any hives for the storage of honey or where bees live or breed. Apparently bee keeping is not allowed in the city limits. Besides this, the only thing I found that could have been used for your situation (if the laws of my city were the same as yours) was this: (The city has the right)...to move or demolish buildings and structures, or parts of buildings and structures, party walls and foundations, when the same are found by the governing body of the city to be unsafe to the extent of being a public nuisance from any cause. I don't know if harboring a hornet nest would constitute an unsafe structure in this context or not. I also found specific and numerous laws about dogs, cats, livestock. There was also an article in the paper about how last week's city council resulted in the passing of an ordinance which would allow for a $325 fine for having mowed grass on the street in front of your house. So apparently it's not uncommon to have a very specific law to address a very specific issue. None of that other vague wording is needed. Good luck with your procedure and I hope you have a great (hornet-free) weekend!

Anything that flowers will attract all kinds of pollinator type insects, but you already know that. If the dog is outside during the day, but inside at night, you might want to choose something that blooms at night, like the moonflower vine (Ipomoea alba) which has flowers that open in the evening and close in the morning. I'm not a huge fan of gourd vine in prime locations. They look great early in the season when the leaves are fresh and bright green, but as the season wears on, the leaves often become much less attractive as they show damage from insects and disease. I like to grow gourd vines on the fence near the veggie garden, or on the fence around the dog yard, but not especially close to the doors, porches or patio. Among annual vines, you have many flowering options including: moonflower vine, morning glory, black-eyed susan vine, cypress vine, cardinal climber vine, canary creeper vine, hyacinth vine (gorgeous foliage and flowers that somewhat resemble wisteria blossoms) and blooms relatively late in the summer; scarlet runner bean, or firecracker vine (mina lobata). I grow all of these around the landscape and they do attract bees and other pollinators, but I've never been bitten by any of those flying insects and (as far as I know) neither have the dogs nor cats. If you want a more tropical appearance, you could plant a flowering tropical vine like allamanda, mandeville, jasmine, corkscrew vine, or passionflower vine. Of those, passionflower is most likely to overwinter in a large container, but the others would die in the winter and have to replaced. I wouldn't plant trumpet creeper because it probably would be too heavy and too vigorous although it is cold hardy enough to survive the winter in a large container. You could plant either a honeysuckle like "Pink Lemonade" or American Cross Vine and they probably would survive winter in a container too. You could plant either the white-flowered or yellow-flowered form of Lady Banks' Rose in a very large container. Lady Banks only blooms once in the spring and then you'd just have the foliage the rest of the year. I'm sure other people with have other ideas as well. Dawn

well, i have alot of violets in my garden and i don't recall ever seeing any sort of stinging insect on them, maybe bees as they are pollinators and tend to hang around, but i don't think that you have much to worry about.

Perhaps a pyrophorus beetle? Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1772206