Ever Been Attacked By Bees?

[Marvelmania]

Was doing some yard work at my sister's place and had no idea there was an in ground bees nest there until I started mowing over the top of it. Darn yellow jackets came out of the ground after me. They chased me for a good distance before they backed off. Guess I got away lucky with about 12 stings. I was always very allergic to honey bees as a kid, always running around barefoot and stepping on them, but these weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. Not fun mind you. I've got some swollen red bumps on my arms and legs that itch like crazy but nothing too bad. Guess it could have been much worse, especially if a kid or dog stumbled across them. I'd never heard of bees nesting in the ground before. Now I get to try and get rid of them somehow.

[z3zep]

When I have about 4 or 5 my friend and I disturbed a nest in my backyard. He started to run away yelling and I was like hey.. wha..? Then the swam came at me, I had about 15 bites some one on my face and a couple on my neck. Same thing yellow jackets, those guys are nasty.

[Wise4671]

I just killed out a nest last weekend. Wait till it gets dark pour gas down the hole get back away from the hole use some stick matches and throw the match at the hole or make up a little torch to throw at the hole.

[Wise4671]

Ohh and don't keep a flash lite on the hole while pouring the gas the bees tend to go after the lite :-)

[Captain Big Trousers]

This is how I learned about the birds and the bees.

My family emigrated from the UK to Australia when I was nine. I knew nothing about Australia other than they had kangaroos and koalas. I certainly never knew everything tries to kill you in Australia - even kangaroos (koalas will just pee on you from the treetops. I don't think their pee is poisonous, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was).

I'd been in Australia for about two months when, standing atop a big hill in a park with another recent UK immigrant boy, something large thwacked me on the back of my head. I turned to see a large bird, a magpie, flying off. "Stupid clumsy bird" I thought and went back to whatever my 9y/o self was doing. But no! THWACK! Again, big bird has thumped into me, this time with his talons out. "Blimey" I exclaimed to my fellow pasty white British companion. "We're under attack! Run!"

And so we ran, down that big hill, and straight into a swarm of bees. I probably yelled something very English and pathetic as we scrambled back up the hill to evade the bees. Of course in a tree at the top of the hill the magpie was waiting. THWACK! Into my head again, scratching and pecking at me. So back down the hill we went, straight through the swarm of bees and onwards to the shop, where we calmed ourselves with ice-creams and sweets.

Walking home laden with lollies and an ice-cream each, I hear a familiar buzzing noise, turn around and see we're about to be mugged by bees (presumably for our icecreams). Eject! Ice-creams thrown over shoulders and we ran all the way home.

I can't remember how many months it was before I dared venture outside again. I probably missed that summer.

Australia. It wants you dead.


Now ask me about sharks.

[drquest]

Oh yeah....

In High School we were doing a cross country run, and I hung back to to talk with the coach and everyone else went ahead. Bad mistake.... All of their running stirred up the Yellow Jackets under the ground and here I came running through and it felt like I ran through a sticker bush, but there was no bush to be found. I had high top socks on, and soon realized the pain in my legs was from these Yellow Jackets hanging onto my socks. My cross country run quickly turned into a 100 yard dash and I ran out of there as fast as I could!

I ended up with about a dozen stings on both legs. I was a little concerned because my dad was allergic to honey bee stings, but I had no ill effects to the stings aside from the pain and red spots on my legs.

[Marvelmania]

Yeah they hang on tight. they were all over my shirt and after I took that off I found 3 of them inside of it. Pesky little critters. They followed me for a good 60-70 yards.

[Mikey]

My uncle used to raise bees

He even used to give school assembly shows on the subject

His tombstone is shaped like a beehive

[Earth 2 Chris]

Yellow Jackets are like some unholy underground army from Hell. I was hiking with my buddy Greg up in the mountains around the campus lake back in my college days. My friend walks over an old dead stump, and I follow. Apparently he disturbed the Hive Queen She-Demon, because as I walked across, dozens of yellow jackets swarmed upward into my polo shirt. They got caught in the fabric and continuously stung me as I ran around like an idiot and finally jerked my shirt off. Greg knocked a few off of me that were still in me, and he got a few stings. I had 27.

I remember Greg telling me "You better not be allergic, or I'm going to roll your *** down this mountain before I carry you." I wasn't allergic, and I didn't see a doctor (like a dork). I will admit I felt kind of...weird for about a week there.

Chris

[Duncan]

I weed whacked over a nest last year, but got stung only once or twice. This year I found a pretty big nest in the lawn and I'm still trying to deal with it. There's a chance it's partly inside a pipe leading to our sump pump, so I won't be doing the gasoline trick.

[Brue]

I was 8 years old. My mom and I were walking the horse in the back field. The horse stepped on a hive. I got at least a dozen stings. My mom and I ran the 300 meter path back to the house. The horse ran too. My mom put me in the cold tub and gave me benadryl.

[cjefferys]

Yellow jackets are a complete b*tch. Very aggressive, they'll chase you over long distances, and unlike bees, they don't have barbed stingers, so they can sting you over and over. You don't want to mess with a hive of them, that's for sure!

[thunderbolt]

At my previous job I mowed over a yellowjacket nest in the lawn and was stung 13 times, they were stinging the seat on the mower, the tires and anything else they could sting. Since then I have been more sensitive to stings.

[Marvelmania]

I'm gonna give the gas trick a try and at least run them off long enough to put some sand and then concrete in the hole. From what I've read they tend to have 2 entrances into the hive but I have no idea if and where the other hole could be.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Just be careful. As others have said, Yellowjackets can sting multiple times.

Chris