Stung by a hornet today feel like a wuss

[OIF/OEF]

Ive been battling these red wasps at my house...kinda a personal battle really the darn things are tough and keep coming back no matter what I do. Anywho I thought I finally got rid of the wasps but hornets moved in. Well I was walking around the yard and spotted them buzzing around so I went and got the spray. I walked up to the nest and sprayed them and instead of kinda flying off and giving in all hell broke loose and man these things were on the attack. I was running in circles and spraying so fast I was running into my own spray.... I think I hit myself in the head with the can. I thought Id let them settle down and move back in to spray some more....well they were not having it those darn things were aggressive as hell as soon as I walked up it was game on and I got what was coming to me I guess. Ive been stung plenty of times by scorpions, bees and wasps but this was a whole new level of hurt lol. I got dizzy and my chest was getting heavy the darn things packed a punch. I tried my hardest to play it cool in front of my family my back and arm were swollen like I owed those hornets money and lots of it. Lesson learned today.....get the spray that has some better trajectory.

 

[Jason Boersma]

A garden hose works pretty good and never runs out, knocks down nests and gives you plenty of time and room to get away, best time to get them is late in the day about dark.

 

[OIF/OEF]

Now I know. These things will travel to hand out an a&& whooping. I couldn't help but laugh about it afterwards

 

[snert]

I once watched my dad fashion a coffee can onto the end of a piece of conduit. he put some rags and gas in the can, lit it and held it under a white-face hornet nest forming on a limb of our cherry tree. They came ripping out and lost wings in the flames. Pretty cool! Made an impression.
Several years later while mowing I spotted a huge nest of them in a Douglass fir in the front lawn. I even found the old can and stick. I thought I was pretty smart as I lit that puppy up in the center of that pine tree...till the 25 foot tall pine became a sudden Roman candle! Darn near burnt down the entire row of pines. :-[

Dad came home to three smoldering black pines and a great story about hornets and how great it was he taught me how to kill em!

I learned later that ground bees like yellow jackets can be dealt with using a gallon of gas and a big rock to plug the hole. Vapors kill the nest, no explosions or burnt grass either, if you don't try to light it. ;D

 

[Phil]

Sounds, to me, like you needed a 12 gauge.....


Phil.

 

[mshelton]

Sounds, to me, like you needed a 12 gauge.....


Phil.

I'd say a flame thrower, when it absolutely has to die, kill it with fire, twice.

 

[jonbearman]

I too have been through hell with carpenter bee's that moved into my house. I sprayed and sprayed and only got a few because the nest was up a cement block and couldn't spray it directly. So I foamed them in and then they moved into my reloading room for 2 weeks. They finally died on Friday and I vacuumed some up at a short count of 131 dead yellow jacket bee's(carpenter) so now I have to clean off all my benches to get rid of all the bodies. I hate yellow jackets.

 

[swd]

When I was about 9 years old we were at a friends cabin up in the Sierras. We were walking down the road and I was kicking a soccer ball along. It rolled up on the side of the road and I went up to get it and disturbed a nest of ground hornets. Meat Bees as we call them out here. They came out, swarmed me and started stinging and biting so I started running. My parents were yelling stop, stop and they'll leave you alone so I did and all they did was swarm and sting more so I started running again. Finally the hornets gave up after a good long run. When we got back to the cabin my parents counted just under 100 bites/stings. I recall being a bit dizzy and it hurt like hell. All they had on hand was calamine lotion and asprin. It helped and after a few days I was ok. Good thing I wasn't allergic. It was a hell of an experience for a kid.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

With wasps you can throw soapy water on em and its game over. Not sure about hornets. I know one guy that shot a nest with squirrel shot and they about killed him. Know another guy that waited til winter and cut one down we had been watching all summer fishing. Hung it in his taxidermy shop and had to abandon it for a week while we threw bug bombs thru the door like flash bangs from a swat team. They loved their short hibernation

 

[confuzed]

cant say about hornets but I know that when I find yellow jackets I go back to their hole in the ground after dark lite a 10 min flare and stick it in the hole and they are done!

 

[lrgoodger]

With wasps you can throw soapy water on em and its game over. Not sure about hornets. I know one guy that shot a nest with squirrel shot and they about killed him. Know another guy that waited til winter and cut one down we had been watching all summer fishing. Hung it in his taxidermy shop and had to abandon it for a week while we threw bug bombs thru the door like flash bangs from a swat team. They loved their short hibernation

If that woulda been me, I'd have been dead. One sting sends me to the hospital to get a shot of antidote.

The guy with the 12 guage didn't do it right. My wife found one of those big paper hornets nests the hard way. It was inside an evergreen shrub in the yard and she didn't see it. When she got beside the shrub with the lawn mower, they came swarming out. Luckily she had the good sense to run like hell for the house and only two of them got her. Later that day just before dark I pulled the car up to about 15 feet from the nest and unloaded a #6 shot into the center of it with the 12 gauge. I hopped in the car quick and shut the door and drove away. The next morning the nest was laying in the yard torn to shreds and the hornets were all gone.

 

[gary0529]

Don't go 12 ga. unless you have somewhere to hide!
Tried that 20 years ago-damn paper nest hornets/wasps had a huge nest in a large cedar tree and got pi--ed off whenever me and Mr. Tractor ventured near-"I will show you" I said, I waited for a frosty morning and the faithful dog and I went down to settle the score-2 rounds of #9 from the double barrel and faster than my then younger body could move and faster than a Whippet could run (and they ARE fast dogs) I had a whole colony of those guys on us.
Thank God the dog and I were not allergic but I got hit well over 30 times and needed Benadryl to quell the reaction and the dog needed a month to trust me again :-X

Wait until a hard freeze- knock down the nest and then burn it.

Lesson learned the hard way.

Gary

 

[Richard Jones]

A cup or so of gas in a yellow jacket hole (do not light it!) around dusk will vaporize the nest, literally.

For the bigger hornets, nothing is better than starter fluid/ether, IMO. It will shrivel them where they stand........

 

[logger3006]

Seven dust that you use on garden plants. Throw it on the hole or on the paper nest. The workers carry it in the nest on there bodies and touch the queen. Its all over in about 12-24 hours.

 

[1shot]

I'm not sure what breed of wasp/hornet it is but the hives look like a conventional red wasp but have black and yellow strips around them. They are also aggressive little b'tards but I found a cheap, simple to make them DRT. You won't believe this but the $3.00 a can brake cleaner at W-mart makes them dead before they hit the ground. Don't buy the green can, it's De-clorinated and doesn't work very well. Buy the red can, (same price). Like others have said, get them after dark when it cools down, but be aware that they aren't in the nest holes, but between the nest and whatever the nest it attached to. After you have killed them all, knock the nest down and the won't re-build there. BTW, OP you could have went into Anti-phylatic shock or suffocated from your wind pipe swelling shut. Go to your doctor and get an epi-pen. They are a one shot deal, just jab it in your leg, or tell someone else to do it for you and you'll be fine. BTW, brake cleaner is non-flammable, so no chance of burning your pine tree down.
I hope this helps,
Lloyd

 

[waterfwlr]

That is hysterical. I know what it feels like. Got stung by a hornet in the head last year.

 

[KMart]

Back in the days when a lot of us helped bale and haul hay, I have seen more than one tractor abandon on top of a bumblebee nest. The bees instantly take possession of the tractor and continue to attack the tractor until it runs out of fuel.

 

[nastynatesfish]

My buddy used to haul cattle and hay from Arizona to Texas. I'd go help him every once in a while. We were out finishing up tarting his truck and seen some wasps buzzing around a ports potty. Went to inspect things and took one right in the nipple! After I got out of the truck and a few choice words later we developed a plan of attach...TANERITE! We mixed up to pounds of that stuff, did a little rolling drive by in the truck and rolled it towards the door. Backed up 50 or 60 yards and lined up the 223. Fired....BOOOM!!!! Poop and blue panels flying everyplace! It was beautiful! Didn't get the wasps. Spars toy they were not in it but under it. Oh I'm sure we killed a few but it took a high pressure hose off the water truck to dispatch them. Still full as all get out. Kinda miss that ports potty once in a while. Some things are better left to the professionals. Wasps, and ex wives...everything else is fair game

 

[fredo]

I remember being up at Christian Service Brigade camp up in the 'Dacks as a kid. One afternoon, we took a few mile hike to a waterfall for some swimming & whatnot. On the way back, one boy must've stepped on a ground wasp hole, just off the trail...
All I remember was looking back at him flailing his arms & screaming and wondering WTH was going on?!? Right about then is when I noticed the cloud of yellow devils around him & started feeling stingers burning into my own skin! IIRC, I got 14-17 stings, but wasn't allergic. That other boy really got the crap stung outta him and was in bad shape. Two counselors grabbed him up and high-tailed it to the nurse's cabin. As I remember it, they saved his life! The counselors took turns carrying the boy while running over a mile back to camp. The sheer volume of venom he got was wreaking havoc on him...

Never been nailed by a hornet, can imagine they pack a punch!!!

 

[JarheadAZ]

True Hornets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornet can be highly lethal.

Ancient family mythology (my parents were married during the Depression), claimed that the 'government' (WPA/CCC?) conducted a widespread campaign to eradicate the Giant Hornet within our borders that was essentially successful(?).

Current TV programming suggests these days that a serious hornet threat (Asian Giant Hornet?) is moving West through Europe and finding its way into the USA. We ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Greg