Bees near Mountaineer Shelter

[Seatbelt]

Just an FYI for anyone hiking in this area--we(along with several other hikers) ran into yellow jackets about .2 north of Mountaineer this weekend. Yep, we got stung. They are right close to Slide Hollow.

[Tennessee Viking]

About anywhere on the trail right now, where ever you find a dead log on the ground or even log steps you will find yellow jackets. Best thing to do is to be the first to pass the nest. The reason they start stinging is that someone just stepped on or struck their nest with a hiking pole, so the next set of people get stung.

[Pedaling Fool]

I've often wondered and I've even asked here, but didn't get an answer. How does the aggressiveness of Africanized bees compare to yellow jackets. I suspect yellow jackets don't even compare, but you'd think they we're just as bad by some of the things you read.

[Theosus]

They'll chase you a good ways... I was walking on an old railroad track with my father and sister when I was young. The wasps had made a nest under a railroad tie and stung us over and over as we ran back to the house. We all wound up going to the hospital. What a way to find out you're allergic to bees. Thanks to years of shots for it as a kid, I'm not in danger of dying now, but I don't relish the idea of getting stung by a bunch of damn bees again.

[daddytwosticks]

About anywhere on the trail right now, where ever you find a dead log on the ground or even log steps you will find yellow jackets. Best thing to do is to be the first to pass the nest. The reason they start stinging is that someone just stepped on or struck their nest with a hiking pole, so the next set of people get stung.

Never realized than. Good info to know. Yet another reason to continue to hike solo.

[Buffalo Skipper]

Yellow jackets stingers have no barb, so they can sting repeatedly without the stinger breaking off (resulting in the death of the insect). And yes, they are very territorial. Statistics I have read suggest they may "chase" for up to 100 yards. On some occasions, however, I have seen their nest disturbed and the colony swarming, yet they never ventured more than 10 yards from the nest, in spite of a dozen people working nearby.

...The reason they start stinging is that someone just stepped on or struck their nest with a hiking pole, so the next set of people get stung.

This happened to me a few weeks ago. The bugger stung me on the hand, which was strapped into my trekking pole, and as if in slow motion, I could not get my hands off of my poles to swat it off. It stung me many times before being fatally injured against my handle. These things feel like gun shots, and are known to itch/sting for several days afterward! I am not alergic to stings, but my whole hand swelled up, and several hours later, I had suffered a bout like heat exaustion, even though I had been eating and drinking plenty. I think my reaction was exasserbated by the repeated sting I suffered. Four days later, the swelling went finally eased, and two weeks after that, the stinger (which had broken off) finally came to the surface and I was able to remove it. After that, it felt better and healed much more quickly.

I don't like to mess with or be around these yellow jackets.

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/...llowjacket.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jacket

[Astro]

I've often wondered and I've even asked here, but didn't get an answer. How does the aggressiveness of Africanized bees compare to yellow jackets. I suspect yellow jackets don't even compare, but you'd think they we're just as bad by some of the things you read.

John,
I had a brother-in-law who was a bee keeper that I used to work with some, and the african bees are at a whole another level above the yellow jackets and wasps. The fear of them was enough for him to speed up his "retirement" and sell out his business. Now I know yellow jackets are no fun (I was stung by one on my AT hike earlier this month), but they are nowhere near the agressiveness of the african bees.

[Wise Old Owl]

I've often wondered and I've even asked here, but didn't get an answer. How does the aggressiveness of Africanized bees compare to yellow jackets. I suspect yellow jackets don't even compare, but you'd think they we're just as bad by some of the things you read.

Saw a Nat geo 5 years back if you breach a Yellow jacket or wasp nest you run 1/2 a football field and they get tired and break off. Africanized Bees - you better be in good shape its three football fields.

[Pedaling Fool]

John,
I had a brother-in-law who was a bee keeper that I used to work with some, and the african bees are at a whole another level above the yellow jackets and wasps. The fear of them was enough for him to speed up his "retirement" and sell out his business. Now I know yellow jackets are no fun (I was stung by one on my AT hike earlier this month), but they are nowhere near the agressiveness of the african bees.

Saw a Nat geo 5 years back if you breach a Yellow jacket or wasp nest you run 1/2 a football field and they get tired and break off. Africanized Bees - you better be in good shape its three football fields.

Thanks to both of you. I've heard of why the Africanized bee is so aggressive, basically it's because it has so many enemies wanting their honey. However, I wonder why the yellowjacket is so aggressive, albeit not as aggressive as it seems, but still very much aggressive. I haven't found anything that addresses this; it's frustrating reading, because most things end up talking about extermination practices, even on .edu sites


I wonder if it's the black bear and other animals that is responsible for their aggressiveness. As for the Africanized bees, it'll be curious to see how this evolves; I tend to believe the seriousness of the situation is a little overblown.

[Pedaling Fool]

On some occasions, however, I have seen their nest disturbed and the colony swarming, yet they never ventured more than 10 yards from the nest, in spite of a dozen people working nearby.

I wonder if that may be due to the type of yellowjacket; we all say yellowjacket as if that is just one type of wasp, but there are a few, including a German variety which was introduced a few years ago.

[Seatbelt]

Someone told me recently that when you kill a yellow jacket, it emits some kind of odor/aroma that other bees recognize and come to aid their dying comrade. Don't know if it true or not. Anyone here know??

[Pedaling Fool]

Someone told me recently that when you kill a yellow jacket, it emits some kind of odor/aroma that other bees recognize and come to aid their dying comrade. Don't know if it true or not. Anyone here know??

I don't know if that's true, but evidently they do "mark" you, with a chemical marker if they sting you, much like a Africanized bee. There's really no reason to kill them if they're near you because they are really just looking for food; a simple brushing away of them will cause them to move away, just don't inadvertently trap them between your hand and body, that will provoke a defensive sting. Actually, even if you're near a nest no reason to kill them -- that would be just wasted time; all you need to do is run, and very fast at that




On another note, I did find this article, pretty good, but old, and it does seem as though other animals attack their nest. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/17/sc...ted=all&src=pm



Selfless, Helpful and Intelligent: the Wasp; Yellow Jackets Much More Than the Evil Guests at the Picnic, Scientists Say


By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: August 17, 1999


It is late summer, which means it is time to grit one's teeth, get outside for a little family picnic, and practice that ever-fashionable dance routine, the Yellow Jacket Jive. Herewith, some tips from a mistress of the form (ahem):

Partner A: Approach picnic table and land on sandwich. Partner B: Sit bolt upright, eyes goggled. A: Fly off sandwich, head for can of cola in partner's hand. B: Jump up, spilling cola on shorts. A: Swoop toward partner's face. B: Rotate arms wildly and squawk like Olive Oyl, but with more expletives. A: Continue circling partner's face. Buzz in left ear. B: Run inside and lock door. Stay there until the first frost.

Yes, August is official yellow jacket month, as a number of entomologists have proclaimed on their Internet Web pages, and as anybody within range of a public trash can will attest. This is the season when the wretched little biblical plagues boil forth in force, bobbing and weaving like drunken marionettes, poking in fruit stands, crash-landing on soda cans, and haughtily, viciously, perniciously stinging any human who dares to protest, those vile little -- .


I'm better now. Sure, I've been stung a couple of times by yellow jackets, and, sure, both times I thought my leg had spontaneously combusted, but it turns out that yellow jackets are not the mean-spirited vermin their victims assume them to be. They are not nasty for nastiness' sake. They are proactively defensive, family-values types that struggle selflessly to support and defend their kin. They may crave the same junk food we do, but they are not base freeloaders, and sometimes will even pitch in by hunting caterpillars, aphids, flies and other garden pests.

And to the entomologists who are beginning to piece together a portrait of their society, yellow jackets are fascinating insects, with all the sophistication of behavior found in bees, ants and other elaborately social insects.

Yellow jackets are not preprogrammed automatons, but learn from experience, including where and when to crash the best parties. They can communicate with one another, conveying their intentions, work assignments, the location of a hot new outdoor restaurant. Exactly how they communicate, though -- whether through chemical signals, touch, sound or a kinetic language like bee dancing -- is not understood.

Yellow jackets' cooperative talents are most evident in the complexity of their nests, usually built underground or in wall voids and thus not easily admired. But they are beautiful creations, with thousands of cells assembled from masticated wood pulp and leaf litter into a structure the shape of a hanging Japanese paper lantern. As the colony grows, the yellow jackets excavate the soil and expand the nest downward. If they encounter rocks and pebbles too big to remove, they dig beneath them, causing the rocks to drift down and form a kind of cobblestone floor at the nest bottom.

''Yellow jackets and their relatives, the paper wasps, are the pinnacle of animal architects,'' said Dr. John W. Wenzel, associate professor of entomology at the Ohio State University in Columbus. ''They're better at it than anyone else but humans, and they do it without blueprints, without a foreman or an engineer. They create a structure too vast for any individual worker to perceive, and yet the whole thing fits together.'' Some are practically indestructible. The nest of one type of paper wasp in South America, Dr. Wenzel said, feels like a cage of tough felt and is so durable that specimens from the 1700's are still in good shape today.

Knowing thy enemy means knowing a little of its taxonomy, and when it comes to identifying exactly what a yellow jacket is, most people are understandably confused. Yellow jackets are in the same insect order as ants and bees, Hymenoptera, and they are often erroneously called bees, perhaps because the yellow jacket's striped body looks like cartoon depictions of honeybees. In fact, real honeybees often lack a distinctive banding pattern and instead are covered by a fuzzy coat of yellow or brownish hairs. Yellow jackets are in no way fuzzy-wuzzy, though they, like bees, are very buzzy.

Yellow jackets are also waspish, literally speaking. They number among the 900 or so species of the world's social wasps, Edith Wharton wasps if you will, which means they live in a highly cooperative and organized society consisting almost entirely of females -- the queen and her sterile female workers.
Yellow jacket wasps are closely related to, but distinct from, another group of social wasps, the hornets; though to further confound matters, one of the yellow jacket species native to North America is known, misleadingly, as the bald-faced hornet. In fact, the only true hornet on this continent is an introduced species, the European hornet, which is chocolate-brown, as big as a thumb and surprisingly mild-mannered.

''They don't come to get me when I dissect their nests,'' said Dr. Wenzel, who studies wasp nests for a living. ''I had European hornets in the wall of my house in Georgia, and they'd fly in and out of a hole right above where I entertained guests. Nobody ever got stung.'' Of course, Dr. Wenzel admitted, most of the guests were entomologists. ''They're the only ones who are willing to sit there with hornets flying overhead,'' he said.

Yellow jackets, by contrast, sting readily when anybody goes after their nests, which is why Dr. Wenzel has been stung at least a thousand times. There are 15 species of yellow jacket in this country, and all have the delightful ability to sting their victims, not once, as a honeybee will, but multiple times. The difference lies in the structure of the stinger. Whereas a honeybee stinger is heavily barbed and stays where it is inserted, resulting in the evisceration and death of the bee, the yellow jacket stinger is comparatively smooth, and can be pulled out and reinserted as its possessor sees fit.

Another distinction between bees and yellow jackets lies in the content of their venom. The main source of pain in honeybee venom is a small peptide called mellitin, which disrupts cell membranes, including of the skin's many nerve cells, which then scream ''danger!'' in the form of pain signals.

In yellow jacket venom, the molecule that prompts a fiery distress is a very different and smaller peptide called kinin, which mimics a compound indigenous to the body, bradykinin. This mysterious compound helps to control heart rate, but will also cause excruciating pain when released into the bloodstream, explaining why the yellow jacket toxin has evolved to imitate its structure.

As for which sting hurts the most, the answer cannot be quantified. ''It's purely subjective,'' said Dr. Justin O. Schmidt, a research entomologist at the United States Department of Agriculture bee labs in Tucson, Ariz., who studies insect venom. ''I've talked to beekeepers who say bee stings are nothing, but whoa, look out for the yellow jackets. Then there are the scientists who work with yellow jackets, and they insist the honeybee sting is really miserable. I personally consider them about the same.'' He also recommends a similar treatment for both stings: a cool poultice of salt or baking soda.

Deaths from either bee or yellow jacket stings are fairly rare, and usually result from a severe allergic reaction to ancillary compounds in the venom rather than to the pain peptides themselves.

If yellow jackets seem more frankly aggressive than bees or hornets, more apt to assault the innocent, they have reason for their paranoia. They are the only wasps in North America that produce large quantities of brood, and so a yellow jacket nest offers an extraordinary nutritional jackpot, as much as two pounds of protein, to potential predators like raccoons, skunks and bears. Thus, they sting at the slightest sign of danger, though their efforts may be in vain. Bears have been seen to continue raiding nests even as they were being repeatedly attacked, and one scientist said he found hundreds of consumed yellow jackets in the belly of a raccoon he had shot.


Yellow jackets also grow increasingly aggressive as summer turns into fall, when they start running out of prey caterpillars or maggots and must rely on scavenged goodies, which people amply if unwillingly supply. Some yellow jacket species, particularly the German yellow jacket, which was introduced onto this continent in the 19th century and lately has spread throughout the country, are pure scavengers to begin with, and so really like hanging around people.

''Yellow jackets have a capacity to learn,'' Dr. Schmidt said. ''They learn not only where the places are that have good food, like picnic tables, but they also learn what time the food will be there. They won't be flying around the tables at 8 in the morning.''

''They pick up on our timetables,'' he said, and so will emerge at lunchtime and scout a favored picnic area even when it is empty.

The yellow jackets are hunting for two food sources: meat, to feed the larvae back at the nest, and sweets, to give themselves energy as they scavenge. The adults also get some sugar from their young charges. Upon bringing back some masticated protein and feeding these so-called meatballs to the larvae, the larvae regurgitate sugar water that the adults then drink.

The workers truly work themselves to death, with their tasks changing as their lives progress, from safe to dangerous. Young workers stay home tending the nest, feeding the larvae or building new cells. Only as they approach the end of their 30-day life span do workers assume treacherous foreign assignments like foraging. Yellow jackets are also adept at switching roles when need be. Workers operate by the clock: if somebody on the assembly line fails to show up for duty, after a certain point the worker next in line assumes her comrade is dead, and does the job herself.

Even the queen is capable of getting down on her hands and knees (and knees), and doing whatever needs doing. When a queen emerges from hibernation in the spring, she must do everything herself: find an abandoned rodent hole in which to start building a nest, lay eggs and hunt for food to feed the first larvae. Only after she has reared enough workers to take over the mundane housekeeping chores does she retreat permanently into the nest and spend the rest of the season laying eggs, as she alone is capable of doing. By late summer or early fall, her colony may consist of several thousand workers.

As the weather cools, the queen starts generating eggs with a new destiny before them: some will be born potential queens, and a scattering of others will emerge as drones, males fit only to inseminate those queens. The virgin queens and males fly up and mate in an autumnal frenzy. Afterward, the males die, soon to be followed by the queen mother and her workers.
For their part, the newly fertilized queens seek shelter for the cold weather to come, and they have a genius for persistence. Studying how yellow jackets survive the harshness of an Alaskan winter, Dr. Brian M. Barnes, a professor of zoophysiology with the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, and his students tracked yellow jackets in the field.

They determined that a new queen will dig into leaf litter left from the previous autumn. In that way, when the new leaves fall, the queens are under a double layer of protection from cold and moisture. As the snow falls, it covers the leaves, offering yet another insulating blanket.

Measuring the temperature within the leafy shelter, the researchers found that it never fell below about 15 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with an outside temperature of, say, 40 below. They also learned that the queen was able to ''supercool'' herself, her body tissues falling below freezing without forming deadly ice crystals, partly the result of her being sheltered from any water or ice particles that would set the crystallization process in motion. She subsists in a state of cryogenic preservation, hanging under the leaves, Dr. Barnes said, ''like a mummy.''

It does not take much to arouse her, though. When the researchers brought wintering queens into the lab and thawed them out, the queens rapidly reanimated and, Dr. Barnes said, ''started trying to sting us.''

[Seatbelt]

Thanks John, I guess I have performed that dance a few times. Kinda sounds like the way Disco dancing was invented back in the '70s LOL.

[Tipi Walter]

I'll be copying this thread to take out with me on my backpacking trip in September which is peak month in the Southeast for hornet stings. You can't backpack in the Southeast w/o getting stung by yellow jackets. Luckily, bears and maybe pigs partially dig up their nests but it doesn't kill them off BUT it does allow a careful hiker to see their holes and go around.

Last year on Slickrock Creek I ran the gauntlet from crossing to crossing---12 total---and saw and avoided 6 major hornet nests. Had I not been looking, had I not been going SLOW, I would've got nailed. So---guys---go slow and look ahead for their nests. Go slow. It's the best way to keep from getting hit.

[Pedaling Fool]

Hey TW, not to split hairs...well maybe a little bit I'm posting this excerpt from the article I posted above in post #12:

"Yellow jacket wasps are closely related to, but distinct from, another group of social wasps, the hornets; though to further confound matters, one of the yellow jacket species native to North America is known, misleadingly, as the bald-faced hornet. In fact, the only true hornet on this continent is an introduced species, the European hornet, which is chocolate-brown, as big as a thumb and surprisingly mild-mannered.

''They don't come to get me when I dissect their nests,'' said Dr. Wenzel, who studies wasp nests for a living. ''I had European hornets in the wall of my house in Georgia, and they'd fly in and out of a hole right above where I entertained guests. Nobody ever got stung.'' Of course, Dr. Wenzel admitted, most of the guests were entomologists. ''They're the only ones who are willing to sit there with hornets flying overhead,'' he said."

[Tipi Walter]

Hey TW, not to split hairs...well maybe a little bit I'm posting this excerpt from the article I posted above in post #12:

"Yellow jacket wasps are closely related to, but distinct from, another group of social wasps, the hornets; though to further confound matters, one of the yellow jacket species native to North America is known, misleadingly, as the bald-faced hornet. In fact, the only true hornet on this continent is an introduced species, the European hornet, which is chocolate-brown, as big as a thumb and surprisingly mild-mannered.

''They don't come to get me when I dissect their nests,'' said Dr. Wenzel, who studies wasp nests for a living. ''I had European hornets in the wall of my house in Georgia, and they'd fly in and out of a hole right above where I entertained guests. Nobody ever got stung.'' Of course, Dr. Wenzel admitted, most of the guests were entomologists. ''They're the only ones who are willing to sit there with hornets flying overhead,'' he said."

The locals call them ground hornets, I call them yellow jackets---whatever you call them they live predominantly in the ground and along foot trails and react to the slightest ground vibration and love to attack. The bald faced/white faced hornet also stings---worse than the yellow jacket---but in my opinion they are much less aggressive. They tend to build nests suspended off bushes and blowdowns---paper nests.

Side Story---one time I was camped above Hot Springs on the AT---this would be '84---and retired to the tent and went to sleep. About 3 in the morning I felt something in my goatee and scratched a bald-faced hornet into my face and it stung me on the chin. Not fun.

[Marta]

Skunks tear into yellow jacket nests. You can often smell the slinky residue before you can see the gaping hole and angry yellow jackets. The worst hiking accident I've ever had is planting a hiking pole in a yellow jacket hole. I got at least 35 stings. I spent a couple of pretty miserable days nursing my wounds. I'm not allergic to stings, but just in case, I now carry a substantial quantity of Benadryl in my "medical kit."

[FarmerChef]

Was up in CT and MA this past week with my wife and the kids. Kids got nailed a couple of times from those buggers, except neither my wife nor I got stung (front and back of the group). Thankfully, there were only 2 or 3 stings per person and not more. Being (no pun intended) beekeepers we know what to do with honeybees but yellow jackets are another matter entirely.

Both times I'm sure I disturbed the nest as I walked over it with my poles but I didn't see anything obvious. Can anyone describe what the holes in the ground look like?

[Tipi Walter]

Was up in CT and MA this past week with my wife and the kids. Kids got nailed a couple of times from those buggers, except neither my wife nor I got stung (front and back of the group). Thankfully, there were only 2 or 3 stings per person and not more. Being (no pun intended) beekeepers we know what to do with honeybees but yellow jackets are another matter entirely.

Both times I'm sure I disturbed the nest as I walked over it with my poles but I didn't see anything obvious. Can anyone describe what the holes in the ground look like?

Many nests are partially dug up as below, a typical ground hornet nest. These can be avoided by going slow and keeping your eyes open. Once you get used to looking for them they're easy to spot.