I forgot to beehive yesterday...

It is funny, I have NEVER been stung killing yellow jackets, wasps, or hornets. I used to kill hornet nests with two aerosol cans. I would hit the hole with an aerosol with an immediate kill, then stick the tip of a fogger type aerosol (like a WD-40 tip) through the side of the nest and fog the inside. They would pile up in the entrance and clog it. Today I tried using a plastic bottle of dust, the dust didn't come ut quite right and instead of backing away... I went for it again. It was in aholly hedge, I thought a holy leaf was sticking me on the outside of my arm at the elbow but it was a big black baldfaced hornet. I brushed him off and went to the truck and got a sting swab. Went to the drugstore and got some benzocaine sting swabs, cortizone creme, and some benadryl, just in case. I think it hit the vein that runs just outside the elbow, not in the bend but following the outside of the forearm at the elbow because I felt it in my wrist and hand right after it stung me. I now have a purple/red spot the size of a nickle there... but it really didn't hurt that bad... another reason I think most went in my blood stream. I guess I am lucky I am not allergic, I would have been DRT, if I were allergic. I mean, it did hurt but not as bad as some yellow jacket stings I have had. I was a little sick to my stomach and was getting some prickly head rushes but it is all gone now.. I hope. If you don't see me anymore you'll know why but I think I am OK.
I started out to say it is funny and got off track... it is funny because I have always felt that if I didn't charge extra for killing jackets or hornets... I would surely get stung. We just started her pest control service less than a week ago and I decided, for the first time ever to not charge extra for it and it crossed my mind... I'll get stung, sure as the world, if I don't charge for this... and sure enough, 25 years in business, never stung killing a nest... until today. You bet I will charge from now on.
 
I am going back tomorrow to check, I am not sure I killed it... now it is personal. It is bigger than a basketball.
 
J

They're in league with the birds.

Those bugs tend to get really miffed when you mess with their home.... 
 
As an electrician and alarm tech, I tend to run into red wasps in panels that are outside, and under the eves of buildings. I keep some wasp spray and WD-40 handy. 
 
I recall one instance where we were installing a new service and needed to put a 2" pipe through the wall.... as soon as we started pounding on the cinder block to knock the hole, yellow jackets started coming out about 5 feet down from us.  A radio call to the boss (I had not started my own business yet) and an exterminator showed up..... with a few cans of bug spray.  He wanted us to beat on the wall while he sprayed them as they came out........     uhhhhh NO!
 
One of our guys used a 10' piece of conduit to stand back and beat the wall.  And they started to come out. The guy ran out of spray and had to go to his shop to get more. He came back with a case and lined the cans up on the ground so he could grab as needed. 
 
To make a long story short, he estimated there were 40,000 or more yellow jackets in that wall once he was able to get it open. The hive was up the wall and across several cavities. They had been there for some time. 
 
we were able to work to complete the job with only minor distractions from the returning yellow jackets. The exterminator was stung several times as was the lineman in the bucket truck and both of the other guys on our crew were hit once each..... but they were also provoking the bees after the job was done.
 
I don't know if hornet, wasp and yellow jacket venom is similar to honey bee venom, but they are using bee venom to treat MS.
 
 
 
side note: In Charleston SC they paint their porch ceilings light blue. It's believed that the color keeps wasps from building nests under the roof..... they think it's the open sky or something.

Horror story:
 
While visiting a friend, his little buy suddenly started screaming and jumping around while swatting at his legs. I was the first to reach him and his dad was yelling "get his pants off" so that's what I did.
 
A red wasp had gotten up his pant leg and was stinging him..... he had multiple stings and the wasp was "bristling" when we found it..... we crushed it...

Guitarhacker
side note: In Charleston SC they paint their porch ceilings light blue. It's believed that the color keeps wasps from building nests under the roof..... they think it's the open sky or something.

Hey, cool tip!  I'll have to keep that one.
 
My horror story happened at a friend's house when I was young and we used to play wiffle ball in his back yard.  If you hit it over his back fence it was a home run, but you had to go get the ball yourself.  I tended to hit a lot of homers and, on one of them, I went out his back gate and the ball had landed on what looked like a green felt blanket (there was a so-called "greenbelt" behind his house where the power lines go and nothing gets built).  I reached down to pick up the ball and was suddenly surrounded by wasps.  Since I was wearing shorts I freaked and managed to vault his fence, land on the diving board of his pool, and fall into the water with a few of the wasps still on my legs.  I ended up with 14 stings and a very long paranoia of flying, stinging insects.

Nature appears to be winning...

paulo

57Gregy
They're in league with the birds.

Yup.........
 
hello mr Jbow, so you think it's fun to shoot my friends do ya ? Have some of this. Gotta love nature fighting back :)

I went back today and got the nest. It is on my porch. I know where another one is that is near four times as big. I am going to kill it and bring it home too. This one it about 20' up in a magnolia tree hanging out over a street, I suggested to the lady that we wait until a freeze but not now... I am going to kill them and bring their nest home. Payback!
 
I have dominion, I am going to exercise it.
I'll post pics when I get it.
 
J

Starise
  
 
 That was bad enough, but my uncle being the southern gentleman he was, knew of the best remedy there ever was, oh god yes. Chewing tobacco, wet chewing tobacco and lots of it. The idea is to chew it then spit it on the affected area (my face in this case). It's supposed to draw the poison out. I think I had a whole bag on Red Man on my face.

Any tobacco. My mom used to break open one of her Belairs, chew some of the tobacco from it and apply it to my bee stings. It worked.

soens
If they win can you have them post pics for us? We wanna see the action either way.
 

They wont win, they got in a sting... I got the nest. I'll get the other one too.
I am a paid killer. I am good at what I do. I don't mind taking risks, no risks... no success.
 
J

I was over confident with this nest. I was using a 1 lb plastic bottle of Drione dust. Not much came out on the first try and I reached back in the holly to dust again.... I killed them but one got me. I should have backed off when I saw that they were stirred up but what the heck. I kill yellow jackets with the same thing.
 
Then I am the same guy who will not use glueboards because I have seen where rats have pulled half their skin off getting loose. I either use a snap trap or a live trap. If I live trap them I let them loose in the country at a dumpster. You just cannot leave a big hornet nest in a backyard 6 ft from the kids trampoline, it isn't safe and someone has to do it.
 
J

I was just reading about that Asian species that can be 2" long with a 3" wingspan.  Oh yeah, and it has the most venomous stings plus it calls for help - lovely!  I think I'll just stay here thank you.

Those hornets do look intimidating. I have seen my dad get rid of wild bee hives using petrol fumes I think, but onyl from a distance (I'm allergic). My little brother used to mock me about that and staged a photo of him eating a giant jam sandwich just beside a big wild beehive.
 
We also get these nasty, dark, almost black bees that are relatively aggressive.
 
But... now there is a thing called the varraoa (sp?) virus and the bees are dying out.