Yellowjackets do not appreciate having a lawnmower run over their nest

One day, we were leaving the farm, all packed in the pickup. Suddenly my dad hollers like a mad bull, throws the truck into Park, jumps out, & starts tearing off his pants. a Wasp or Yellow Jacket had crawled up his britches leg, & was eatin' him alive... We also had these 2 ponies, mother & daughter. One time, these big clients of my dad came to the farm & wanted to see the ponies, which were, of course, loose. Henry starts chasing them, the ponies would run 25-30 yards & stop & turn around & look at him. Well, they did this several times, w/Henry gettin' madder & madder-AND more tired every time. Finally, they stopped at this one place, Henry put his hand up on this tree, & he was almost instantaneously COVERED in Yellow Jackets...He must have gotten popped 2 doz times, at least. Somehow, he made it back to the barn, we got him home & took him to the emergency room, they gave him a shot or 2 & he was alrite. The ponies got sold shortly thereafter, to a dog food plant, IIRC.....(grin)
 
Yeah, it's no big deal until you get zapped by one. Hurts like a sumbitch. Had a lot of trouble with them here building nests all over the place and after I got stung, I developed a whole new attitude towards them. No mercy - if I find a nest I kill everyone of them that I can. From 20' away with those long distance spray cans. And I still run after zapping them.

Murray
 
A little clear ammonia on a cotton ball can do a lot to take the "sting" out of many bee stings. I think the ammonia neutralizes the venom or something to that effect. The sooner you apply it after a sting, the more relief it will give.
 
We have one less pestering our house. My brave husband with a large can of hornet spray does battle with them from time to time.
 
Back in the late 60s a couple of friends and I were riding our motorcycles with our girlfriends. A wasp bounced off my shoulder and into her shirt and worked his way into her bra! A beautiful, modest young lady turned into a stripper quicker than you can snap your fingers! Everybody had a good time.... except her. I'll never forget it. It was the only time I ever liked being around wasps.
 
I wouldn't think that they would, since the lawnmower's noice would disrupt their soundstage. The music they make is just too good for that.:music:
 
Walking back down the canyon after a long days fishing, my partner and I decided to straighten the canyon out by walking away from the creek in a few places. We we're back away from the creek, but still within the highest water mark, sandy soil. Suddenly, pain from multiple points, hands, face, neck, back, any exposed area, or areas with thin clothing were covered in yellowjackets. Both my partner and I were covered in them, and they were biting the crap out of us. I was trying so hard to swat them away that I dropped my fishing rod, and ran. Damn - this is a really expensive flyrod/reel combination, and I sure as hell wasn't going to walk away from it - so, I manned up, and walked back into the line of fire, knowing full well that swarming number two was about to be unleashed. Sure as shit, they ascended on me again en masse. In total, probably 30 bites for both events, and my partner probably got half that.
They had a nest in the sandy soil, and we came too close to it.
Then there was the time that I was climbing the roof access ladder of a commercial building. I was carrying a bucket full of paint, and half way up the ladder was a vining plant that had grown up the side of the building. It had encroached on the ladder, so you had to climb through some vines to get to the top.
Well, there was a yellowjacket nest in there, and they came, and swarmed my face, resulting in multiple bites around the face and hands. I managed to hold onto the bucket, and not spill it at all, and ended up in near shock from this event.

Then there was the time when my brother and I decided to go hunt for snakes in the bottom of a deeply overgrown coastal chaparral canyon. We started at the bottom of the canyon, and we knew that our folks house was about halfway up the canyon, on the ridge. So, we got to about that point, and then went straight up the canyon wall; no trail. The direction we picked happened to be blocked by about a 10' natural rock wall that was covered in poison oak. We were delicately picking our way around the wall, and poison oak, and not paying attention to much else, when suddenly searing burning pain all over my body,... I was covered in wild bees from a hive that was in the rock wall (likely early africanized bees - around 1975'ish or so). They were all over my head, and back, and any exposed flesh, and stinging the crap out of me. I tore through the poison oak with reckless abandon trying to get away from them, and eventually, got my clothes off, and with my brothers help, got the bees beat back. The doctor suggested over a hundred stings just on my back, not counting the arms and scalp stings. I found out in this adventure that I was not allergic to poison oak.
There are other swarmings, but, I'll have to think about them for a spell, as I've tried to mentally block them out.

Bees and wasps like the way that I taste.
 
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Wanna hear my story of getting covered by so many ticks that my Levis 501's looked like a mass of solid ticks? - thousands of them - no 501 blue to be seen.
 
OK,.. driving to the job, I remembered about the worst - a single bee sting incident, but awful nonetheless.
I used to be an avid surfer, and, I used to drive an old volkswagen beetle ('66 bettle). I was cruising on home after a session, in my board shorts (loose fitting), no shirt, and beach slaps. I was rolling down my street, just about home, with the wing window open. Suddenly, there was a tick, and something came flying in the wing window. It was a bee, and it got sucked into the wing window, and it was as pissed off as it could be. It landed on the inside seam of my shorts, and quickly got up into the leg, and, well, it stung my on the bottom underside of my boys. I damn near crashed trying to get it out of there, but ended up getting stung anyway.
OK,... getting stung on your boys is a painful experience - but the worst of it was the swelling, and then the incessant itching, and how to deal with that without looking like some kind of a perv.

Then there was another incident of laying my arm over a stake pocket in a pickup truck, to help lift a heavy object, and having a giant bumblebee bite into the soft flesh of my forearm with every ounce of its being,...
 
Another motorcycle story- riding through UGA campus, saw something coming at me very small moving fast, slowed down, it matched, -pow- right in the neck under the helmet. Felt like a hot bullet.
 
OK,.. driving to the job, I remembered about the worst - a single bee sting incident, but awful nonetheless.
I used to be an avid surfer, and, I used to drive an old volkswagen beetle ('66 bettle). I was cruising on home after a session, in my board shorts (loose fitting), no shirt, and beach slaps. I was rolling down my street, just about home, with the wing window open. Suddenly, there was a tick, and something came flying in the wing window. It was a bee, and it got sucked into the wing window, and it was as pissed off as it could be. It landed on the inside seam of my shorts, and quickly got up into the leg, and, well, it stung my on the bottom underside of my boys. I damn near crashed trying to get it out of there, but ended up getting stung anyway.
OK,... getting stung on your boys is a painful experience - but the worst of it was the swelling, and then the incessant itching, and how to deal with that without looking like some kind of a perv.

Then there was another incident of laying my arm over a stake pocket in a pickup truck, to help lift a heavy object, and having a giant bumblebee bite into the soft flesh of my forearm with every ounce of its being,...

Oh, yeah....Back in the day I had an '82 Suburban. One of the great joys w/it was rolling both the front windows down, & the tailgate, & unless it was ungodly hot, you really didn't much need A/C...One day, I was toodlin' down the road, arm restin' on the door, & I felt something. Looked over, & saw the BIGGEST BUMBLEBEE God EVER made fixing to crawl INSIDE my shirtsleeve... I slowed down, took CAREFUL aim, & flipped him out into the slipstream..And then I rolled all the windows up on my Sub, & turned the A/C on "Blizzard", & sat there & shook for awhile...
 
Wanna hear my story of getting covered by so many ticks that my Levis 501's looked like a mass of solid ticks? - thousands of them - no 501 blue to be seen.

I'll see your ticks and raise you two legs covered in leeches!:D
 
leeches,... yep.
As a kid, I roamed around in utah, idaho, wyoming (family there), and my home local of so_cal. I fished at every opportunity. Fishermen and leaches area natural pairing. Well, I'd waded out into a lake one evening to fish, in the alpine zone elevation, not even slightly thinking about leeches at 10k'. I came back in about fifteen minutes later with a bunch of those blood suckers attached. acckkKK!!
We caught fish that were stuffed with so many leeches that they were bloated, and still continued to eat them to a point that their mouths were packed full of them,.. and they still ate our flies. Gluttony.

I'll meet your leeches and raise you with a couple of decades of sharp purple urchin spines in your feet from surfing. They fester up nicely after a couple of days, and usually pop out like a festered splinter.
 
fish with spines,.... oh jeez, never mind - total highjacking.

yellowjackets bite, and bite heard - they leave scars.
I watched in fascination, as a kid, when yellowjackets stripped a brook trout head down to bare bones. I was about 8, and my grandfather had cleaned a few fish for dinner. He'd dropped one of the fish heads, and the yellowjackets found it, and stripped it down to nothing over the course of the afternoon.
 
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I'll meet your leeches and raise you with a couple of decades of sharp purple urchin spines in your feet from surfing. They fester up nicely after a couple of days, and usually pop out like a festered splinter.

Don't know about those but I do remember jellyfish stings while surfing in the Gulf. No wetsuits either. Too warm.
 
OK,.. so it seems like your with me, somewhat, on this fish with spines thing with your jellyfish comment!?

jellyfish ::rolls eyes::

purple urchin - imagine stepping down onto this bare foot:
Heliocidaris_erythrogramma.jpg

fortunately, our local purple ones, like this one ^^, aren't toxic, just annoying.
 
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