Sting like a bee.

I was just mowing my yard and almost got stung by a bee. I reflected on prior stings in my life, and although I think I have been stung many times, I could only vividly recall 2 times in my 48 years, remembering the details.

How many times have you been stung? And I mean that you can vividly remember. I mean real/painful stings like from a wasp or hornet or bumblebee, not a "sissy" sting like a sweatbee.

Age would be a good add!

I was stung by a honeybee when I was somewhere around 8 years old.

I can't ever remember being stung again until I got stung about 2 weeks ago. We moved into this house about 3 years ago. It is in a rural section of the city. There are wasp nests everywhere. I finally got stung by one. Was moving some equipment around and there must have been a nest under it. Those suckers are mean, flew straight at me and stung me on the calf. It took me a second to realize what had happened, but I could see more coming at me out of the corner of my eye. I ran like a girl for the house.

It hurt pretty good for about 2 hours. Not knowing if I am allergic I took a precautionary Benadryl and an Advil.

I am declaring war on the wasps this winter. I will eradicate every nest on my property.

Total of FIVE (5) times that I recall. Recently got stung by a wasp on my left wrist while painting a deck! :huh: Funny thing about it is, the "acute" pain in that same left wrist that antagonized me for a couple of years, all of a sudden is no more till this day! :thinking: I mean I heard of "bee sting therapy" but—

I recall as a child we were on a car trip with aunt and uncles and cousins (two cars) to St. Louis, Missouri. On the way we stopped at a park to picnic. At the time I was about 11 and was a notorious bee killer. I loved to stomp on defenseless honey bees and slow bumble bees as they mindlessly buzzed the clover in our local parks.

Well, at the picnic grounds I observed a yellow jacket wasp emerge from the ground. I correctly surmised that the wasps had made an underground nest. My blood lust took over and i decided instead of stomping lazy bees in the park I had a shot at the mother of all big game a whole nest of yellow jackets wasps!!! I imagined going down in history as the boy who killed a whole nest of vile, buzzing stinging nuisances.

I steathly approached and as a wasp emerged from the hole in the leaf litter I pounced, jumping on to the litter with all my 70 lbs body weight. Immediatley I spied a buzzing yellow and black missile come from beneath my feet and latch on to my nose. I ran screaming back to our group with a swarm of very angry yellow jackets wasps behind me and one stubbornly latched to my nose stinging me repeatedly.

I led the swarm back to our picnic which caused immediate panic. We grabbed our blankets and coolers and little ones and headed for the safety of our vehicles.

My uncle loaded his family first and hit the highway. We were a bit slower but managed to ensure that the wasp was off my nose and none enetered our 1972 Ford station wagon with genuine imitation wood grained panels.

My father sped off down the road in search of our companions. About a mile up a head we spotted a car swerving out of control on the road. It pulled over after a few harrowing moments and we watched as my aunt, uncle younger cousins and one allergic teenager valiently attempte to escape the wasps that had followed them into the car.

When we arrived at our destination, me with a swollen nose and sore posterior, my father with a sore foot and my cousins covered in wasps stings I vowed never to kill a bee or wasp again. (not kepted)

Wolfen, LOL!

I stepped on a wasp in the house when I was probably 7 or 8, that was the first time I remember. It was nasty because I didn't really know what had happened right away. I just remember that it wouldn't stop hurting. i'd run it under ice cold water and it would lessen, but as soon as I tried to dry it off it would come right back. Nasty, but I survived. I think there has only been 1 other time, while riding my bike in shorts something flew up the bottom of my pant leg and got me just in the crease between my leg and butt. I couldn't bend it without experiencing quite a lot of discomfort. That wasn't so bad as the first time as I was older and not as scared, but it still hurt quite a bit to get myself home on my bike, I think I rode with that leg stretched out straight and peddled with only one foot

The wasps around here are prolific! Their nests are everywhere. I make it a point to walk around every few days and spray half a can of wasp killer on all the new nests. A yellowjacket somehow got into the house and stung my 5 year old daughter on the finger while she was in bed asleep a couple of weeks ago. Poor thing, but she was a trouper! Not a nice way to wake up, but at least we know now she's not allergic.

YELLOWJACKETS are the worst durn wasp in existence.

I've developed a serious allergy to their stings, and carry injectable epinephrine with me in the summer.

My last encounter about four years ago left me unconscious in my kitchen for several hours. I don't remember how I got back in the house. Was deathly ill for three weeks.

Their sting feels like a 220 volt prod, combined with being hit with a pistol bullet.

Oddly, although they are wasps, common wasp stings feel like a babies kiss compared to the yellow jackets.

They don't have barbed stings, so you can get multiple stings from one jacket.

If you find a nest (easy to see once you have seen their characteristic in/out behavior), mark the location in your mind. Come back AFTER DARK, and dump a few ozs of Sevin dust IN/DOWN the hole, and vamanos the heck out of there.

Do NOT do this during the day, you will regret it.

Forget the gasoline/kerosene/etc., they won't get a total kill.

The next morning, you will find a total kill of EVERY jacket in the nest.

We have recently had armadiloes appear in West Tennessee. The ones on our place are digging up active nests, and devouring them. God love them.

The two I remember vividly are as follows:
First one I was putting on a t-shirt that had been hanging on the clothes line and then folded with a wasp on the inside. I put the shirt on and the lil sucker stung me on the underarm, ouuuuch!!! I was probably 16 or 17.

Second one I remember I was on a motorcycle going down the highway at 55 or 60 mph. I hit some kinda bee, stung me also under the arm, the same side mind you, kinda on my side but closer to my underarm. Swelled up and left a red mark about the size of a baseball, OUUUUCH!! I was wearing a net type sleeveless shirt, pretty smart huh?? I've since gained some sense, not much, but some!! Doug

I just got stung by a Yellowjacket 2 days ago. I was just sitting on my Grandma's back porch and he stung me on the arm. So that one is still on my mind :lolsign: .

I have destroyed 2 Yellowjacket nest in the ground in the last week. One at Mom's and one at my Grandma's.

The most I ever got stung was 42 times by Yellowjackets when I was about 10 years old. I was fine the next day besides all the stings itching.

I have no idea how many times I have been stung by various Bees, Wasp, and Hornets but I would have to guess it would be over 200 times. There were several times when I would receive several stings at once while Surveying.

The most painful sting I ever got was by a very large black and brown Wasp while surveying. He had a very long stinger and it hurt like the devil. They had a nest in a blackberry thicket and I was the lead man chopping a hole through the mess. I went running back the way I came and yelled at everyone to run because I had no idea what had stung me. Well we had a new guy (tough guy ) with us and I was teaching him. Well Mr. Tough Guy decided there was nothing to fear and headed into the area I just left. Not 30 seconds later he let out the most awful howl you ever heard as one of the Wasp popped him right above the eye. I said "You darn fool, I told you to run." I felt sorry for him at first but later he used it as an excuse not to work. He did not last long after that. Mr. Tough Guy decided that he would rather find another line of work.

When I was a child my Grandpa would make me hold my arm out to a swarm of Honey Bees and they would cover my entire arm to the point that they became heavy. I never got stung once. He was trying to teach me not to be afraid of them. I was still afraid :laughing: . And do not think of it as some kind of child abuse. We always had Honey Bees and we had to learn how to handle them at an early age so we would not be afraid of them later.

Edit: I just remembered that I got stung on the thumb by a black and white hornet one time. That really hurt as well. I think it hurt more because of the location of the sting.

I think it is required for young boys to whizz on supermans cape and mess around with hornets nests. I was at an uncles house and was playing out side and spotted a water pump in the yard so naturally I pumped the bejeezus out of the handle and kept my mouth by the spigot but instead of water a stream of wasps/hornets/ bees from hell came flying out right into my face. I made three or four complete laps around his huge farm house before anybody could catch up with me. I have also caught a bumblebee in the pocket of a tee shirt while doing 70 or so, when the stunned bumblebee revived it nailed me right in the left well you know where and I almost jumped off the bike no matter how fast I was going.

One of the things I do is rehab distressed (old, falling down) houses and resell them. I do most of the work myself (tho less and less as my sight fails) so I get stung fairly often. Probably one or two stings a week if I'm busy. These are black wasps and large and small yellowjackets (paper wasps). We don't have the bad type of yellowjacket that nest in the ground, thankfully.

In the past 4 years I've been swarmed twice by africanized honeybees and once by bumble bees. All while mowing. I've learned to keep my truck very near when doing that. The African bees are really ferocious. The first time I ran about 200yds to a lake and they were still after me. 47 stings that time.

Obviously, I've developed immunity, but they still hurt. I keep several epi kits around, just in case.

When I was 12, I accidentally stepped on a honeybee here in Sacramento CA. USA.
I was walking barefoot along the curb on E. Pacific Ave.

I remember that because my foot swelled to ~3 times its normal size; and stayed swollen for at least two days. I had no other symptoms, so I think I can rule out anaphalactic shock (general allergy to honeybee venom).

I've been stung three or four times when I was really young with nothing but a sore spot for a few hours or whatever. The last time I was stung was when I was six or seven years old. I had a pretty bad systemic reaction (not life threatening, but not mild either). I've carried epinephrine ever since, but I've never been stung. I'm 18 now, and my allergy was only moderate to begin with, so I'm going to get tested again sometime to see if the allergy has worn off, as the allergist said it probably would.

interesting stories! JohnK that's interesting about the armadillos eating the yellow jackets -- how do they feel about other bugs like africanized honey bees, and fire ants?

I was stung once on the thigh by a wasp, and those couple square inches have been numb for the past 20 years..

lately got stung by a honey bee when a sandal came off and the bee landed on it right before I slid it back on, tagged me right on the big toe. It became one big puss filled balloon.. a soak in hot salt water, then a lance, and the emptying of fluid made it feel much better..

i got ate up with wasps a few years back.was repairing a central air unit at the shop.
i have back problems and to get off the ground i grabbed a pipe that is close to the ac.
pulled myself up while everyone was calling my name.found out why about the same time i thought my hand was on fire.it had turned black with wasps and they were pissed that i had covered the end of "their"pipe for a few seconds.
now we have a "wasp burn" every few weeks since they insist on nesting there.
spray in carb cleaner and ignite.
in 4 weeks they can fill the 3" pipe with nests!burns about an hour when we clean it out.

Once we found a wasp nest in a barn that had been abandoned.

It was 3 layers thick, with the base being about 4 to 5 FEET in diameter.

Stupidly, we threw a brick at it.

We were saved by a cloud of diesel exhaust that the tractor was putting out. The wasps stopped when they got a whiff of that.

Should have killed them somehow and taken the nest. We could have probably sold it for a good bit.

Well, in my 30 years, I've lost count of the wasp stings I've had, but only remember 1 bee-sting.

I was maybe 6 or 7, living in western Wisconsin, enjoying a nice spring morning. I'd closed my eyes for a few seconds, and felt something brush my eyelid. Opened my eyes, and WHAM - bee stung my right eyelid.

It swelled pretty good, and hurt for an hour or two, but I remember feeling bad for the bee, since they die after one sting. Yeah, I was a sensitive child...
Luckily, I wasn't allergic, so the worst part (after the sting itself) was having the stinger removed. There was no good way to scrape it off, so someone ended up grabbing it with tweezers and yanking. This, of course, squirts the rest of the contents out.

Most vivid one was when I was 7 and was eating a sandwich at a picnic. A bee landed on my sandwich without me noticing and I took a bite......******* got me on the inside of the lip, and my face swelled up like nothing.....

Speaking of fire ants, when I was 5 I was laying on the couch watching tv and felt a burning on my legs.....looked down and I was covered! My dad moved the couch and a black nest about the size of a fist was there on the floor.......another was discovered in my sister's closet......

I have a vendetta with ants that exists to this day.... :angry:

dragoman

I tend to remember the ones that *really* hurt or when I get lots of swelling.

A *cough*friend of mine *cough* was chased out of an outhouse by a swarm of wasps. Not pretty, but I*cough* we can laugh about it now.

I've stepped on, been nailed on the ear wearing a motorcycle helmet maybe a dozen times, and minimal trauma. I got a wasp inside my shirt as a kid (paper kind, I think) that brought me to my knees! I hate those suckers, and have shot a couple out of mid air in my shop recently. (Black Flag wasp and hornet.) When you spot a nest, wait until night, (they don't fly at night) and using a flashlight nuke 'em!

Larry