(CNN) Scientists issued a buzzworthy warning to Alabama residents: thousands of wasps are making the state home in what are called perennial yellow jacket nests. And they are freaky.

In 2006, a colony of 15,000 yellow jackets -- the size of a Volkswagen Beetle -- was one of 90 perennial nests located in Alabama that year. Entomologist Charles Ray said something like this may happen again in 2019.

Perennial nest located inside a car in Alabama in June 2006.

Ray's warning was published last month with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System , a primary outreach organization on behalf of Alabama A&M University and Auburn University. Ray is also a research fellow in Auburn University's Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology.

"These perennial nests may be several feet wide and have many thousands of workers, far more than an average nest," Ray said. "We have found them attached to home exteriors and other places you might not expect to find yellow jackets."

Places like the side of a house, inside a discarded mattress, or even just on the ground in a field.

A perennial nest found inside an discarded mattress.

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