Lar wrote:

....
Wondering if you had three paper wasp nests and not yellow jackets

The 3 nests were in the ground and were pretty likely yellow jackets.
I do occasionally find paper wasp nests hanging from eaves and other places.
They don't seem to be the nuisance that yellow jackets are.
....but
with the yellow jacket traps you will only trap a small percentage of a
wasps from a nest. The traps are basically aids to attract the foraging
wasps away from areas of your yard. Yellow jackets will nest in voids,
and usually aren't found until the numbers are so great their activity
is easily seen or the vegetation hiding their activity dies back in the
Fall. just guessing there is not a "bait" due to you would be blindly
killing out beneficial insects, rather than just the occasional problem
nest.

I even tried tying a red thread to small pieces of meat to try to
track the YG back to the nest. One landed 20 ft. away until he
could chew the load down to size. The others I seemed to have lost
pretty quickly. It seemed worth a try.