Fudge!!! Bee sting

[Bill G]

I'm glad you're feeling better, those suckers can be bad, especially if they swarm you. We have European hornets around here too, and they can be rough as well, along with the usual wasp varieties and bald faced hornets.
If plantain grows where you live, you can chew up a leaf of it and put the pulp on the sting, immediately, that will also help with the pain and swelling. It helps fire ant bites and mosquito bites too.

Try hitting a hornet nest mowing with a bush hog. It does not go well especially when the tractor does about 12mph in escape. These are the bastards I have hit. They will make a nest at the base of Giant Ragweed and you have no idea on the tractor they are there til it is too late.

 

[ATpro]

I've run over yellow jacket nest while running a bulldozer, lucky the yellow jackets though the bulldozer was the one to attack and it would give you time to back out. The force of hot air coming out the front of the bulldozer and the air getting sucked in from the sides seems to confuse them.

 

[ATpro]

You fine folks are in an area where snakes are much more of a concern than here.

Yep, I can walk out my backdoor and at the edge of the yard and encounter copper heads. They say keeping cats around will help keep snakes away, guess the cats eat the little ones.

 

[Bill G]

Yep, I can walk out my backdoor and at the edge of the yard and encounter copper heads. They say keeping cats around will help keep snakes away, guess the cats eat the little ones.

I do not envy you sir whatsoever. I hate snakes, I hate snakes, I hate snakes.

I know I have posted the videos before but these were shot while I was walking the pasture with my doggie a few months back. Yes that snake was not at all a threat but did I mention......I hate snakes

 

[Mad Professor]

Yellow Jackets made a home inside a logs hollow. Didn't notice til I split the wood. Damn bee stung me thru my gloves. Not a big deal, right? Woke up at midnight and my hand looks like a boxing glove and the swelling is 1/2 way to the elbow. Double Fudge!!!

Looks like a day of catching up on movies and filling and refilling the ice bag.

You need an epipen, and benadyl.

I almost died as a child

 

[wildwes]

Try hitting a hornet nest mowing with a bush hog. It does not go well especially when the tractor does about 12mph in escape. These are the bastards I have hit. They will make a nest at the base of Giant Ragweed and you have no idea on the tractor they are there til it is too late.

View attachment 1111769

Yep, we have those here, they are awful. The European hornets aren't as bad, but they are still rough. A sting from one of them will have lasting effects on me for a week.
The bald faced hornets are even worse, they are more aggressive and quicker to attack. Supposedly they remember faces too and will attack even quicker if you have angered them previously. I read that in an article somewhere, but don't know if it is true or not.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Bees/hornets don't remember faces but can detect fermones released with fear. They can also tag you with fermones that signal the hive on how to treat you. They tend to fly into people in an attempt to push them away from the hive, maybe 3 will do it, maybe 5, maybe 1, it depends on how aggressive or friendly they are and if you're walking peacefully or not.

Honey bees are different, an apiary tries to keep only friendly hives and re-queen aggressive ones. Some hives you can walk up to and touch the bees, some are only that civil with the beekeeper, some are more aggressive.

In the wild you don't know what you'll run into. I've had super-social hornet nests where you can touch them, and some fairly non-friendly ones. What I learned is the aggressiveness changes throughout the year and with increasing hive size, not for the better typically. As much as I love nature I've learned to respect that the eventual outcome may necessitate immediate action. If needed I'll postpone cutting and set up 2-liter hornet traps and empty a hive before myself or someone else is attacked. I love nature, but nature isn't always as kind as movies suggest.

 

[Hermio]

Yellow Jackets made a home inside a logs hollow. Didn't notice til I split the wood. Damn bee stung me thru my gloves. Not a big deal, right? Woke up at midnight and my hand looks like a boxing glove and the swelling is 1/2 way to the elbow. Double Fudge!!!

Looks like a day of catching up on movies and filling and refilling the ice bag.

Yellow jackets are wasps, not bees. They can sting you more than once.

 

[HansFranz]

It could also be that your immune system is getting more sensitized to bee stings over time and exposure. Your next sting could induce systemic anaphylactic shock which could kill you if you don't have quick access to an epi-pen. Time to visit your primary doc or allergist.

That's what a doc told me after I'd gotten stung 2-3X one summer, and suddenly went into anaphylactic shock. My face turned white as a sheet and my crotch and the soles of my feet started itching so f$cking bad that I had to take off my sneakers and scrub them into the leaf litter to relieve the itching. (I was cutting firewood at the time, and got into some ground hornets.)

I probably got stung a hundred times when I was a kid, with no reaction, but for some reason those ground hornets that one summer did the trick. That said, a swollen hand and arm doesn't necessarily sound like anaphylaxis to me (not a doctor) but it couldn't hurt to have an Epipen handy, along with some Benadryl. (When I get stung now, I chew up 2 Benadryl while holding the Epipen in my hand, and if I think anaphylaxis is coming on, I figure I'll use the epinephrine.) Unfortunately, if you get a really bad anaphylactic reaction, you may not even have time to use the epinephrine. A friend of the family got stung while mowing his lawn, and he dashed to the house to get his beesting kit and dropped dead on his doorstep.

It's pretty sick how anaphylactic shock works: Your body senses the toxin or allergen (beesting venom, peanuts, shellfish, whatever) so it says, "I'm gonna keep that toxin out of the bodily tissues by lowering the blood pressure to almost zero!" ... which ends up stopping your heart because there's not enough blood pressure to feed the heart muscle oxygen. You wonder how a software bug like that could possibly survive millions of years of natural selection ...

 

[lone wolf]

Next time I'll retreat fast. Nothing to be downplaying when a few dozen yard away is safety.

Kill them, but do it safely.

 

[HansFranz]

Kill them, but do it safely.

+1

Before dawn, while it's still dark and dewy -- take a flashlight and hose down the nest with hornet spray.

 

[wildwes]

Bees/hornets don't remember faces but can detect fermones released with fear. They can also tag you with fermones that signal the hive on how to treat you. They tend to fly into people in an attempt to push them away from the hive, maybe 3 will do it, maybe 5, maybe 1, it depends on how aggressive or friendly they are and if you're walking peacefully or not.

Honey bees are different, an apiary tries to keep only friendly hives and re-queen aggressive ones. Some hives you can walk up to and touch the bees, some are only that civil with the beekeeper, some are more aggressive.

In the wild you don't know what you'll run into. I've had super-social hornet nests where you can touch them, and some fairly non-friendly ones. What I learned is the aggressiveness changes throughout the year and with increasing hive size, not for the better typically. As much as I love nature I've learned to respect that the eventual outcome may necessitate immediate action. If needed I'll postpone cutting and set up 2-liter hornet traps and empty a hive before myself or someone else is attacked. I love nature, but nature isn't always as kind as movies suggest.

This is an example of one of many articles saying that bald faced hornets specifically can remember faces. Like I said, not trying to say whether it's true or not, as I don't know and don't want to find out, but there is a lot of information out there saying that they do.

https://www.pestco.com/9-reasons-to-fear-the-bald-faced-hornet/

 

[lone wolf]

+1

Before dawn, while it's still dark and dewy -- take a flashlight and hose down the nest with hornet spray.

Dump a bucket of soapy water in after that too. Also, put a screen on top of the hole before you start, one more thing, if possible get a non-allergic person to do it.

 

[tJKrider]

but it couldn't hurt to have an Epipen handy, along with some Benadryl

I have had some reactions where my hand swelled up after a wasp sting. My doctor said if I get stung to take Benadryl as soon as possible. I have been stung a couple dozen times since and follow this recommendation. It definitely doesn't eliminate the effects but helps a lot.

 

[lone wolf]

I have had some reactions where my hand swelled up after a wasp sting. My doctor said if I get stung to take Benadryl as soon as possible. I have been stung a couple dozen times since and follow this recommendation. It definitely doesn't eliminate the effects but helps a lot.

Benadryl never seems to help me, ice does.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Dump a bucket of soapy water in after that too. Also, put a screen on top of the hole before you start, one more thing, if possible get a non-allergic person to do it.

That works better than hornet spray but can be dangerous as some hornets sit guard and others return to the hive. It is probably better off to set 2L soda bottle bee traps with sugar water/Pepsi or if you want the more professional route toss some ground-hornet granuals at the ground hive and come back two to three days later (they work quite well).

 

[grizz55chev]

That works better than hornet spray but can be dangerous as some hornets sit guard and others return to the hive. It is probably better off to set 2L soda bottle bee traps with sugar water/Pepsi or if you want the more professional route toss some ground-hornet granuals at the ground hive and come back two to three days later (they work quite well).

Gasoline works well too, melts their wings , apply in the morning while they're still cold. Kills the nest dead.

 

[Blue Oaks]

These Victor Fly Magnets work great on Yellowjackets, but only for the first day or so. After that the rotting flies keep them out. I have put these out and within 24 hours trapped hundreds of Yellowjackets. Then they rot and the flies get trapped. They work great.

 

[Blue Oaks]

Gasoline works well too, melts their wings , apply in the morning while they're still cold. Kills the nest dead.

I get little mud nests the size and shape of golf balls under my eaves. I wait until night and soak them with IPA from a spray bottle. Kills them dead inside their nests, and have never seen one escape my wrath.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

I get little mud nests the size and shape of golf balls under my eaves. I wait until night and soak them with IPA from a spray bottle. Kills them dead inside their nests, and have never seen one escape my wrath.

I wash my eaves and siding every 2 years, then put permethrin in a backpack sprayer and spray my eaves and siding to keep the hornets and spiders off the house, garage, and shed. Works great.
(use PPE while spraying, especially eye and inhalation)