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Killer Bees
mag00
Member Posts: 4,719 ✭✭
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I was stationed in Panama and they were more feared than any snake by us, 2nd place was the 50 cal ant.
When you were in the Jungle and saw a bee you did not hang around. I have seen them literally destroy a Company of Paratroopers.
Another thing about them is they will follow you for a long way and keep attacking. When I say a long way I mean close to 500 meters or more.
I actually jumped off the moving tractor with bush hog in tow nad had to run to catch up to it after getting my senses back.
Later that day when they settled down I poured about a half gallon of gas in each hole and used a crappy pole to light them.
The earth shook it was such a huge under ground "explosion" but I have never seen another one.
The worse type of bee for chasing you a long ways is the Bald Faced Hornet.
Had one follow me on my bicycle for a quarter mile and nail me 3 times before I squashed him.
Walked through a ground hive of Yellow Jackets while fishing along a creek bank and was attacked by a cloud of them. I'd bet I had more than 20 stings with the worse in my ear lobe which swelled up like a balloon!
The worse bee sting I have ever received was a lone Yellow Jacket that was in my car. I was traveling along a two lane highway when that little buzztard nailed me right in the tight skin of my forehead! Only one sting but it gave me a very bad headache and the cold sweat chills that lasted for nearly 24 hours!
Never had any issues with allergies so far and still get hit a time or two each year. For the most part, I have made a peace treaty with all of the bees I encounter and can work around them, play around them and even get pretty close around them and as long as I do no harm to them, we all get along!
Here is a little safety tip for if you are going to be near or around bees. Wear LIGHT colors. If you wear black or brown, you are a threat as would be a bear, which bees do not like.
HeDog, does the environment the bees exist in (pesticides, weed killers, etc) tend to have an effect on an individual's reaction to the sting as well?
I have seen nothing in the literature to indicate the question has ever been researched. Generally speaking one has an allergic reaction or not, though being stung a lot can cause an allergic reaction in people not previously allergic. I am around bees, bumble bees and wasps a lot and often have them on my skin, and I have not been stung in decades. I am not around nests however and that can make a world of difference. I generally find them not aggressive away from the hive, but I never swing and swat at them either. If it looks dicey I slowly back away.
I was at the lake one weekend back in 1967 and was eating a sandwich. I looked away for a minute and when I turned back and took a bite I bit a yellow jacket. He stung me right on the side of my tongue! I invented break dancing long before it became popular. Thought I was going to choke to death. On the way home my Mercury Comet died and I was out under the hood cursing up a storm while beating on the side of the carburetor because it had a stuck float. You couldn't understand what I was saying because my tongue was bigger than my mouth. My girl friend was in the car trying her hardest to hide her laughter while I was outside jumping up and down raising hell. [:D]
I was at the lake one weekend back in 1967 and was eating a sandwich. I looked away for a minute and when I turned back and took a bite I bit a yellow jacket. He stung me right on the side of my tongue! I invented break dancing long before it became popular. Thought I was going to choke to death. On the way home my Mercury Comet died and I was out under the hood cursing up a storm while beating on the side of the carburetor because it had a stuck float. You couldn't understand what I was saying because my tongue was bigger than my mouth. My girl friend was in the car trying her hardest to hide her laughter while I was outside jumping up and down raising hell. [:D]
That youtube vid would go viral. Some good ole fashioned fun eh?
A few people at a concert got nailed.
They got her once behind her ear, once on her ring finger and the rest on her ankles.
I was working in my grandpa's brother's garden one afternoon in the '50s when I was a kid and there were a bunch of Yellow Jackets that went up my pant legs and I thought I was going to die from the stings.
There was an old widowed black lady, Miss Sally, that lived nearby in a house on my great uncle's property and she heard me making a racket and she came out to help me. I remember her tying rags soaked in coal oil on my legs. Coal oil was a cure all where we lived in East Tennessee back then. It probably didn't do anything for my stings but I thought it did anyway so I guess it did help as long as I believed it.
I haven't thought of Miss Sally in quiet a while. Everybody loved Miss Sally she was a wonderful old lady. Her husband worked for my great uncle for many years and after he died my uncle let her continue living there. She outlived my uncle and when my grandpa inherited the property he let her continue to live there until she died.