Ever have a hornets nest come after you?
Ever stir up a hornets nest and have them unload and come after you?
I've been stung on trails while hiking but that is nothing compared to the time I was helping to remove a blowdown. Big tree with a lot of branches...I was basically stuck in all the branches and the first couple whacks with an ax pissed off the mother load of hornets living not in the tree but in the ground next to the tree...They made it quite clear that they were pissed off.
been there
walking in a field, kicked an unseen hornets nest like a football, split the whole thing wide open...took 7-10hits, didnt take but the first one to give me wings of mercury....did you know that hornets and yellow jackets are meat eaters and take care of boucoo spiders...also our Rottweiler took a multihit to the head at the cabin, shut down his eye for almost a month...many alternative medicine folk believe that bee stings in general are good for arthritis if so I wish they would hit my knee a couple of times.
I find the easiest solution is to hike with others. That way I don't necessarily have to outrun the hornets, just the slowest hikerThat works for bears, rabid animals, deranged hikers, etc...
I did get stung once by what I think was a single hornet...I saw the insect about the time it stung and it was gone before I could identify it. The sting site did not swell immediately and the wound bled for awhile. I have never been stung by anything where I had bleeding involved afterward. Whatever it was it had a rather large stinger for certain.
I always got whacked by yellow jackets in Vermont it seemed.
Try offering them some of your beer. I worked in a recycling plant years ago ,and the bees (mostly yellow jackets) that hung around the piles of beer cans were the most peacefull bees you ever seen !Originally Posted by L. Wolf
BZZZZZ zzzzZZZZZ zzzzzz ZZZZZ zzzzzz Streamweaver
"Theres is no real hope of traveling perfectly light in the mountains.It is good to try,as long as you realize that,like proving a unified field theory,mastering Kanji,or routinely brewing the perfect cup of coffee,the game can never be won." Smoke Blanchard
<<This is the dude to watch out for though!! Streamweaver
"Theres is no real hope of traveling perfectly light in the mountains.It is good to try,as long as you realize that,like proving a unified field theory,mastering Kanji,or routinely brewing the perfect cup of coffee,the game can never be won." Smoke Blanchard
No hornets (I have heard that the white-faced ones are the worst), Yellow Jackets though. Friend was swinging a stick up just in front of me and whacked a downed tree a couple of times, by the time I walked by--those things thought it was me! I tried to explain (while running), but ended up with 17 or so stings. Up my shorts, under my shirt... these things were pissed. I don't much care for yellow jackets anymore.
Plenty of yellowjacket encounters over years of working on trail crews. Latest was last year, rehabing an old forest service campsite, cleaning out a trash pile. Nothing worse than being sweaty and have yellowjackets stick to you so they can lay it to you over and over...I was pretty much naked by the time I hit the road, peeling off clothes to get rid of the critters. Ouch.
The most humerous time was in 98 on a trail crew - several crew members had been stung by stepping on a partially buried root on the trail. We knew a big girl scout troop was headed that way, so we stationed someone down trail a few hundred feet to warn them. They just shook their heads and went on - you could hear the yelling a mile up the trail everytime the next one went over the root...we went through quite a bit of Sting-Eze that day..
Yes, while hiking, and while doing trail maintenance. In all cases I disturbed a ground nest--either with my Lekis or with a McCloud rake. Seems to be more of a problem in early Fall.
This fall I want to throw a rock at one of them nests hanging from a tree. So if I stand 15 yds away and wop it good with a medium size rock, could I get away if I run fast? How far out to they go looking for the bonehead who riled them up and can they outrun you?
going to get water when a old guy stopped his truck and said he knew of a secret spring closer than the mile we were going to hoof it for water. gave us a ride to a wall of bushes and I thought he was up to no good. he got out and started walking with a cane so I said what the hell, i'll follow.... the old man in the lead..my friend next.. and then me ... all of us about 20 feet apart.... all of a sudden, my friend went nuts and came haulin ass by me screaming all kinds of stuff. I just stood there try'in to figure out what was going on. I got hit 6-7 times and figured it out pretty quick. The hornets actually chased my friend and got him about 15 times. He swelled up quite nicely. The old man hit a hornets nest( on the ground) with his cane.. and they thought it was my friend. Turns out, the old man raised bee's and said the worst thing to do is flail your arms and hair, it acts like a beacon for them......Of course, easier said than done. Hornet has one heck of a wallop..
I posted this over at VFFT on a thread about honeybees in the northern forests. Part of it applies here.
(Sorry if this got kinda long and off topic.....)
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I honestly don't think you'll find much in the way of honeybees in the northern forests at higher elevation due to the lack of flowers - I've worked with insects for years and I've never heard of honeybees collectiing nectar from spruce trees, but I could be wrong.
I've never seen any of the larger assortment of bumblebees nor carpenter bees at higher elevations either.
I imagine the larger problem would be yellow jackets, which are not bees but wasps, though if not familiar with them, they could be mistaken for a honeybee.
Worse yet are the Bald Face Hornets Which are true hornets - They are black and white and build those huge grayish round oblong nests that have those swirling patterns and hang off tree branches (Though yellowjackets sometimes build similiar nests).
Wasp & Hornet stings are usually worse and hurt more than a honeybee sting. Honeybees sting once and then die, as they lose their stinger (usually in your skin). Whereas W&H's can keep stinging and stinging - It makes them much more ferocious, though their venom is less with each sting. I rmember learning years ago that honeybees sting to defend, W&H's sting to kill.
I ran into an underground nest at Skylight brook going up Allen (adirondacks)around 8-9 years ago. as well as 2 years ago on the Thunderswamp trail (PA). All you can do is run like hell.
YJ's are mean - when I was 7, I stumbled onto an underground nest of them and I was stung around 60 some odd times. I ran screaming but they followed. My father came running out of the garage, scooped my up and threw me into our pond and came in after me (He is allergic) . When I got out of the water, there were over a dozen bees in my shorts and shirt. My mother rushed us both to the hospital where my father got Epinephrine (he was stung a number of Times) and I got injections of antihistamines - I was swollen like a balloon for a couple of days.
.....Someday, like many others who joined WB in the early years, I may dry up and dissapear....
Hey Bonehead if you want to attack a bee hive why not go after a honey bee nest in a tree, at least you will be able to come away with a sweet honey-tastycomb reward like them brave bears do.
Nah, Bonehead would wait until the bear got the honey and then try to take it from the bear.
Yea.....Bees..............! Always gettin' hit by bees, jackets, horse-flys, black-flies, mosquitos, dragon-mosquitoes, mud-daubbers, spiders, fleas, ants, insects.....you name it, it'll get ya' on the Trail.....I just make a 'Karmic Bargain' with the insects.....'Saying, You don't bit me, and I won't slap you.' Seems to work! I use the bandana as the 'insect defense system'. Tie a knot in one end, and keep it very handy. That works too, the insects seem to sense when you get a few of them, and go to find easier chomin' grounds. KZ@
Kozmic Zian@ :cool: ' My father considered a walk in the woods as equivalent to churchgoing'. ALDOUS HUXLEY
Ever try making this bargain with the black flies in Maine, in June? KZ: Sure ... doesn't mean they honor their end of the bargain, though.
I doubt if any of these creatures (hornets, wasps, bees, flies, etc.) really have enough reasoning power to make "deals."
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Abraham Lincoln
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee." Abraham Lincoln
If it's not stamped in their DNA, the biting flies must use the internet to formulate their strategies. They are just as ruthless here in Washington. I swear it was all we could do on this one hike to just run like hell back to the car, jump in and start driving, all the while trying to kill the ones that followed us into the car. It's like any sort of repellent is an appetizer for them.
Wasps, hornets, etc
I doubt if any of these creatures (hornets, wasps, bees, flies, etc.) really have enough reasoning power to make "deals."
Some of them seem hell bent on attacking, especially if their nest has been destroyed. I've seen hikers get all freaked out, though, if a large insect just comes flying by or hovers in midair to check out the human-- the one who doesn't naturally occur in that environment. One time I got a warning instead of a sting: I was hammering in some nails on a deck, when suddenly I heard a buzzing and felt a push against my ear. I looked around and saw a rather large yellow jacket moving back and forth against my head. Somehow I got the message, and looked over the railing and realized they were building a nest on the other side, and my hammering was jarring them up. I told them it was their territory, and we left each other alone for the entire season.
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