Bee Season

[floyd]

I forgot. Damn, Randy Mac, dad covered all the bases, eh?

 

[Joe46]

Was cat logging a 20 acre patch of DF on Kiket Island. I dropped a nice fir, and when it hit this big paper wasp nest came out of the top. I dropped my saw and was picking them and putting them down as fast as could headed toward the landing. My partner saw me and hollered what's wrong. All could say was BEES!! So he started running too. Well we both got to landing, and waited around for a while and then decided to go take a look. It was an abandon nest. Ya, I heard about that one for a while.

 

[RandyMac]

I forgot. Damn, Randy Mac, dad covered all the bases, eh?

The real funny part is that the old man was the mayor and had called the meeting.

 

[wowzers]

I take back that non aggressive stuff. I was clearing out as we sent a drag up today, and my hooking partner must have stepped on the nest. Next thing you know I'm in a sea of yellow and black. Run down and land in a bunch of tops and hit a paper nest to boot. Little guys infested my shirt, and one mean SOB decided to bore me right on the nose. The real cherry of the day was ten minutes later two more in a different nest got me as I was setting the choker. It's game on now.

 

[Rounder]

That doesn't sound like any fun. Got one in the elbow today, irritating as all get out. It'll be October before we know it though. Then I'll be #####ing about snow - Sam

 

[RandyMac]

I learned to love and respect them. They are part of the landscape and therefore unavoidable.
I stayed put, kept sawing while generating a smokescreen, if you are running, you aren't working.

 

[Gologit]

I learned to love and respect them. They are part of the landscape and therefore unavoidable.
I stayed put, kept sawing while generating a smokescreen, if you are running, you aren't working.

LOL...not me, man, I run. 100 yard dash, senior division. I'll get back to the wood later. I think the most painful one I ever had was on the inside of the nose. That one put me right down on my knees and made me sorry for every mean thing I'd done since second grade. :smile2:

 

[madhatte]

Hit a big ol' hornet's nest from about 20 feet away with a 200 psi stream of water for kicks today. Stirred 'em up good, but didn't knock the nest down. It was a momentary distraction from the fire I was on... pump and roll tactics for fun and profit!

 

[Rounder]

I learned to love and respect them. They are part of the landscape and therefore unavoidable.

I can sure respect those bald-faces. Nothing tougher or more ornery in the woods. I'd be willing to bet that even Grizzlies and Wolverines flinch when the see one of those things in the distance.

 

[promac850]

I learned to love and respect them. They are part of the landscape and therefore unavoidable.
I stayed put, kept sawing while generating a smokescreen, if you are running, you aren't working.

Oh yeah, that old 'pull the choke and fog them out' trick...

sorry, I'm running... fast. Real fast... #### the work, I'll do when the bees are either

A. Dead
B. Sleeping
C. Dead
D. Dead

I reckon that's precisely why I have six or seven cans of bee killer strategically placed around the house and barns...

Carb cleaner and brake kleen really do wonders on them nasty bugs/insects/etc. I shot a black wasp with that ####, it dropped straight down, dead as can be. Tried the same with your run of the mill Raid bee killing spray, and they wriggled around for several minutes, even after being sprayed some more for good measure.

One time, I had a hard debate on whether to chop the ass end of a bee off so it couldn't sting... I passed on that one. Figured since it ain't showing any threat to me, I'll leave it alone...

I've only killed two bees so far this year... black wasps (mud daubers)... they were making it hard for me to work on the saws in the barn because the were flying past my head constantly, so I shot them with Raid. Took a while for them to stop squirming. Should've used brake kleen...

I haven't tried WD-40... anyone want to test that for me?

My neighbor has a can of that sweet county-only ####... I gotta get me some of those... drops them deader than dead in a quick hit of that stuff...

 

[Samlock]

The fellow who broke me in had once a funny sting. I observed him making a nice 50 meters veteran dash on a clear cutting site after he stepped on a wasp nest. He wasn't a light weight champion, I tell you, but he how flew over the stems and slash. Never forget the sight of it! He wore a heat suit we use here: Loggers jacket, the orange gown you may have seen on pictures, but no shirt under, that's the coolest wear on the warm weather (and I mean cool in both ways). Well, the jacket was open and the wasps got his belly - one got his bellybutton. It looked truly obscene, as his bellybutton would swell and turn red! Picture that, a large round hairy belly and a red stump on it. It made me laugh my head off, of course, but the people in a grocery we went in after work had some difficulty to see the hilarious side of it.

 

[Metals406]

Bald face Hornets (actually in the Yellow Jacket Family) pack a wallop. . . But all my encounters with them have been mellow. The ground hornets always seem to be the most pissy of the crew.

A Bible Teacher of mine was camping all summer about 10 miles above my place on the top of the mountain a few years back. When you're alone all day, there ain't much going on, except to sit and observe nature.

He was relaxing one afternoon, in his folding chair, and a big fat horsefly landed on his knee, intent on chewing off a chunk. Ol Lynn said all the sudden, a Bald Face swooped down and snatched that fly off his knee, and flew to a nearby limb and began to eat his catch.

Made me really like them Baldy's after hearing they eat flies.

 

[slowp]

The wasps around the house here seem to have given up due to our cold summer. But, I'm finding ants.
Today, I was splitting the last of the imported maple that while cutting it last month, required me to take off jeans and empty out the biting ants. I picked up a chunk to split, and ants spewed out. There were so many that I grabbed my bee killing spray and sprayed the ants. I believe it worked.

 

[hammerlogging]

to put it in perspective, I'm more concerned with yellowjackets and bald faced hornets than,say, the 37" timberratttler from a few days ago!

Randy, I will NEVER understand geting a rush out of taking a bunch of yellowjacket hits.

I will understand running away, and thinking, "you little ####ers". Evil bastards.

 

[RandyMac]

Discipline my lad discipline, not allowing the mind's fright to rule your actions. It also helps to know just how far you can push yourself. Remember, I am a Knothead.

 

[Mastermind]

I was near my honey bee hives today watching a strange event. The giant hornets were grabbing honey bees and taking them to the ground where it appeared that they were eating them.

Anyone else else seen this?

 

[2dogs]

Oh yeah, Yellowjackets and I go way back, I think I was just six when we first meet, been greeting them ever since.

My story is with paper Wasps. I was cutting salvage on a big select cut unit, you know the type, where half of what was left, blew down.
I was headed toward a big jackstrawed plie of money makers, when the bastards from the other side slipped in below me and started cutting in MY pile.
I got so excited about that, I lost the oil cap and took a break to whittle out a new one. I happened to notice a big fat grey football hanging in a Madrone. It didn't take long to make the calculations, a DF pole did the trick and that football landed in their end zone. Nobody cut that pile until the next day.
My Grandad got up one frosty morning, wrapped a burlap sack around a big paper nest, left it at the Grange Hall, where a political meeting was going to be held. They met up outside, where the old man was burning poison oak.

Man if that story isn't true it ought to be.

 

[hammerlogging]

Discipline my lad discipline, not allowing the mind's fright to rule your actions. It also helps to know just how far you can push yourself. Remember, I am a Knothead.

I'm all there, and getting in the zone is what its all about, but man, I'm not there yet, yellowjackets send me OUT of the zone.

Practice practice practice. So Zen.

Maybe I can get to where they can't even see me?

This year I've actually gotten more nailed mowing my old lawn than I have yet in the woods. I've stirred up a few nests this year, but I've been pretty lucky so far.

 

[Metals406]

I was near my honey bee hives today watching a strange event. The giant hornets were grabbing honey bees and taking them to the ground where it appeared that they were eating them.

Anyone else else seen this?

Yup, ya gotta watch them close. There are certain hornets that will decimate entire honey colonies. They had a cool show on it on Discovery some time back.

 

[Sport Faller]

Discipline my lad discipline, not allowing the mind's fright to rule your actions. It also helps to know just how far you can push yourself. Remember, I am a Knothead.

I guess I must not be real tough or disciplined because if I have more than 1 yellowjacket coming after me people a mile away are saying "hey do you hear that, I think someones 7 year old daughter must have just seen a spider or a mouse"