I was walking in the woods today when I was suddenly surrounded by some very angry wasps or bees. I'm guessing I stepped on their nest.
By the time I had run like crazy, swatting and brushing them off, I had 9 stings: 3 on the back of my neck, one on the front, three on my left arm, one in the middle of my back, and one on my left leg.
Fortunately, I'm not allergic, and they didn't hurt much after 4 ibuprofen, but they did make nice big welts.
After I got home, I found one (well, most of one) in my clothes. It's missing its head, but its stinger is all too visible. It seems to be retractable, which is interesting.
So - anyone know just what I tangled with? I mean, I'm assuming it's some kind of common ground wasp, but more specifics would be great!
The body parts that remain are 7 mm long, so the whole thing was probably around 10mm long.
I think you tangled with a yellow jacket. They live in nests in the ground and starting this time of year become very irritable and will attack anything that comes near them. Wikipedia link
Ouch! I am alergic to those little buggers, That many stings would probably land me in the hospital. Not sure what type of Bee it is, but be glad that you only got stung 9 times if you did step on a nest. I have a friend that bumped a hornet nest while he was hiking in the woods, 48 stings to his face and the Doctor couldnt even count all the stings to his back arms chest and legs, They estimated 500+ He looked like the Elephant Man for about a week.
Looking again, I guess I smashed in its abdomen, which folded up in such a way that it looks like it accordions at the wasp's control. But I'm guessing it doesn't really ever do that voluntarily.
Yellowjackets...they keep on stinging unlike their other counter parts that will and can only sting once then they die...yellowjackets just keep on stinging...my eldest daughter when she was about 3/4 years old was riding with me on a rider mower at my mother place in MI...I got into a tight area near the creek and had to put her off the tractor, she went to wait for me on the bridge...of course I mowed over their nest and they swarmed on her...and of course my mother had just taken the only vehicle there was around, I didn't know if Tess was allergic to the bee's or not so when my Uncle Pete showed up in his dilapidated truck I quickly threw him out of the truck and took off for the ER, lucky for her she was not allergic to the stings...but man...did it scare me...we pulled out over 50 stingers out of her back, put her on a ice bed and gave her meds..remember the movie "Killer Bees"...
I've always been a bit scared of bees, went most my life without being stung until a few years ago. Photography has made me a little less skittish--I always am "into" the bushes taking photos with bees pretty much all around me...as long as they're busy I'm ok. I still don't like it when they check me out!
We had a nest of these in our soffeting...the exterminator said it was a big one because of the number of guards outside the next...I took a video from our inside window as he took out the nest with a bee suit...man, they were going crazy....banging against the window of the house so hard it was loud.
Yellowjackets...they keep on stinging unlike their other counter parts that will and can only sting once then they die...
Only honeybees can sting only once. Their stinger is barbed and often stays put when the bee pulls away which more often than not means he leaves some of his innards behind as well (thus being fatal for the bee). Wasps, hornets, bumblebees can all sting multiple times if they want.
you think you messed with a bad ass. stir up a nest of white faced hornets....
i had one - one chase me a 1/4 mile, stung me 12+ times. my brother killed it in the house after i fell to the floor in a dizzy state... i never found the actually nest. thankfully it was only one of them... !
It's a little after the fact, but should it happen again, rub raw onion on the sting sites. It's a disinfectant, but onion juice will also act as an antihistamine and keep the swelling down.
Generally it looks like you got stung by one of the many species of yellowjackets. It's difficult to tell which species since it looks like the face is missing. When the face was pulled off the body probably collapsed, when the guts were pulled out, giving the illusion that the stinger was retractable. There are no retractable stingers on yellowjackets. My guess would be that you got stung by a German wasp (aka. yellowjacket) an import to the us.
Suggest reviewing Wikipedia articles.
FYI: from my experience working in the woods on the west coast, besides stinging, the y-jacket can bite very hard; they can even remove chunks of meat and skin from the body. BTW I prefer getting bitten rather than stung. The hurt doesn't last as long.
