Bees, Wasps, and Hornets??

sageadvice · Feb 25, 2011

Part of camping and hunting sometimes. I haven't been dinged for awhile now but the last few times, the area that got hit swelled up pretty good. I also had my pickup attacked by hornets once. Glad i was inside with the windows up at the time.

Do they Bug ya in your area and how to deal with them?

Joey

cbeard · Feb 25, 2011

Joey they are tough down here in TX-kinda like snakes just have to deal with them. When I was about 10 I was squirrel hunting and sat on a stump with a yellow jacket's nest in it. Bad day at Black Rock-those dudes popped me 15-20 times and I had to get nekkid and jump in a pond.

I probably get stung once or twice a year just doing daily chores and stuff.Yellow jackets or red wasps usually.Alot of people are deathly allergic and have to carry injectible anti-allergy medicine with them at all times.

I have seen huge hornet's nests in the woods but avoid them and have never had a run in. They say they are aggressive as you found out.Every fall we have to use wasp spray on all our stands.You don't want to do it right before season because of the smell but not too early either because they will build back.

justr_86 · Feb 25, 2011

My wife is allergic to them so we have to be really carefull. They build nests on my kids swingset and on the wood fence around my yard so I get stung quite a bit trying to keep my family from being stung.... I also get alot of them in my production units at work, its a damn good thing i'm not allergic or I'd been dead a long time ago. Kinda a magnet i guess.

cbeard · Feb 25, 2011

I am always amazed at the amount of heat they can tolerate. I have found active nests in enclosed barrels/bins that are out in the TX 100 degree plus heat all summer. Gotta be 200 degrees in there. Can't see how anything could survive much less thrive in there.

Model_70_Guy · Feb 25, 2011

LAST EDITED ON Feb-25-11 AT 09:09AM (MST)[p]Joey - How about those meat bees (that's what we call them) that show up as soon as you kill a deer when the weather is warmer?

They must have a very good sense of smell and they appear out of nowhere as the deer hits the ground and by the time you get done field dressing the buck they are everywhere.

I remember once my uncle hit a big wasp nest in the ground with a weed wacker and he got hit from head to toe and he almost died from all of the stings.

TAGATTRACTER · Feb 25, 2011

While glassing from a point one evening I heard what sounded like a distant Airplane. I didn't pay much attention to it until I realized it wasn't a plane. I look up to see a 100 foot diameter black ball almost on top of me. That was the largest swarm of bees I had ever seen and was thankful as they went on past.

264mag · Feb 25, 2011

I go to a hardware or feed store and buy those wasp traps that contain a chemical that is taken back to the nest and kills the wasp's or meat bee. This has to be done early spring.

sageadvice · Feb 25, 2011

Thanks guys!

70_guy, Yeah, that is mostly what we have here but there are several others that though not as numbered, are worse if you get tagged.

To tell the truth, i'm a little afraid if getting swarmed again like i have when i used to cut a lot of firewood. Also, i think careful or not, if you are in the woods, you can and stand a very good chance of eventually getting some bad hits.

There is what the locals call a bald faced hornet around here that's 3-4 times bigger than a meat bee. Mean F###'ers and their bite-sting is no little thing. I'm told that grown men have been known to pass out if hit in the right place and i've seen them in big numbers!

Joey

bucklover · Feb 25, 2011

I've read that if you kill one they give off some kind of scent that calls in the reinforcements. And they come looking for trouble.

GotBowAz · Feb 25, 2011

The last time I was stung was by a cutter bee or meat bee. They look a lot like a yellow jacket but for the most part they don't attack. I got stung because I pinched one between my wrist and the hide of an Elk. Like Model_70 said, when you get an animal down there all over it cutting the meat and trying to haul it off. I now bring an electric what looks like a tennis racket and kill them by the hundreds. You can swat them and they won't sting. Now a mud wasp is a different story. Those suckers are aggressive. When I was a kid I was swinging on my moms clothesline pole and heard a buzz. I hung upside down on that T ? post and put my eye up to the pipe. I no sooner did that and bam! right in the white of the eye. I hit the ground knocking the wind out of me and my eye swelled shut!

GBA

cjboz · Feb 25, 2011

Tag I have seen that also, three times actually. The two swarms flying were just like you talked about. Unreal. Just a big black blob articulating up and down about 100 yrds long or better. The other one was when I was working at a feedyard right out of college a swarm came through to rest and set up shop on a post/gate and fence in a shipping ally. The next morning they were gone on the move. My coyote hunting partner told me about seeing them posted up on junipers that were almost touching the ground.

feddoc · Feb 25, 2011

I hate you for bringing back bad memories. Three years ago, annual hunting trip to CO, same hunting spot for many years.

On the way, somewhere in Utah, I get that feeling again. Gout. So, I smile a bit knowing that I have my medicine with me. Directions say: 'Take one every hour until you poo'. No problem. I take one, then another...until I get to just outside Gunnison. I had to stop and, well, go.

Get to camp. I am still going, even as we set up the tent. Only place I could sit was on the trailer tongue. And the sound...just like a cow pizzing on a flat rock...anyway, on to the bee connection>>>that year was really warm, in fact, it was the only year I have ever seen bees up that high. So, I am taking care of business and here comes a couple of bees, and they are headed towards what I am sure they think is a waterfall...only it's not a waterfall, it is the stuff coming out of my body. I HATE BEES. So, armed with only a can of WD-40 and my Kimber .45, I seriously contemplated taking a shot at them as they buzzed around my jewelry sack coming way too close for comfort. I had one land on the tongue and that was enough for me. I cleaned up and never went back to that spot.

>Part of camping and hunting sometimes.
>I haven't been dinged for
>awhile now but the last
>few times, the area that
>got hit swelled up pretty
>good. I also had my
>pickup attacked by hornets once.
>Glad i was inside with
>the windows up at the
>time.
>
>Do they Bug ya in your
>area and how to deal
>with them?

>
>Joey

Compromise, hell! ... If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?

kingfish · Feb 25, 2011

If we find a nest/ hive at home I wait until dark and drowned them with a can of wasp spray that shoots 20 plus feet. We have had them up hunting a few times so we take a piece of meat and hang it over a big bucket of water away from camp. The little pigs eat so much they fall into the bucket and drown. I have to be really careful when my girlfriend and me go camping she is deathly allergic to bee stings so we carry a couple of epipens just in case.

beavis14 · Feb 25, 2011

my buddy and i shot a massive hive hanging in a juniper tree simultaniously with our 12 gauge autos and we got stung multiple times.......check the wind before doing this, no matter how young and fast you are if there is a 25 mile an hour wind blowing in your face when you shoot you will get jacked up !

many years later elk hunting down a deep draw i thought i heared a helicopter aproaching. i waited several minutes never saw it.. looked down about six feet away there was a 8 " hole in the ground that had thousands of hornets buzzing in it. i couldn't resist i sent a 250 grain grand slam out of my .338 down the hole. the outcome was similer to the first story......

pain !

kingfish · Feb 25, 2011

beavis, don't tell anyone that story again!!!Shoot a freakin beehive with a 338 down in a hole??? Duh!

beavis14 · Feb 25, 2011

yes it wasn't one of my finer moments.......

CAelknuts · Feb 25, 2011

Reminds me of a time I and a buddy were turkey hunting on a state wildlife area. There was an outhouse, and I needed to use it, so pulled my pickup over and went to relieve myself while he waited in the pickup. I was wearing a pair of camo coveralls, and had 'em down around my ankles in there. Anyway, I finish my business and pull my coveralls back on, leave the outhouse and climb back into my pickup and drive off.....

About 50 yards down the road, this F***ing wasp or hornet starts stinging me on the inside of my thigh, way too close to the twins. I don't even come to a stop, but bail out of my still moving pickup, while beating the crap out of my leg and screaming, while my buddy is sitting there stunned and wondering what in hell I've suddenly become possessed by, the devil or something worse....

When the pickup finally quits rolling, he jumps out to see me standing in the road, half naked and stomping the crap out of my coveralls. At that point, he knew I was possessed by the devil!