In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Okay, you Entomologist’s ,,,,,,,
forgemonkey
Member Posts: 1,177 ✭✭✭✭
What’s this ,,,,,,,
Comments
An ugly lil' bugger!
Found it ,,,,,,
Bald Faced Hornet.
Yep. bald face hornet
Similar to our president. Bald face liar.
It is mean, it hurts real bad when you disturb it. It builds a paper nest in the most inconvenient places. The lowly bald faced hornet with a stinger you do not want to experience.
Yeah ,,,,,, he had me in his target sights out in the garage ,,,,,,, but my double barrel baseball cap settled it ,,,,,,, 😉
I found a 3" - 4" solid matt red wasp dead in a parking lot and didn't get a photo. Only one iv ever seen
If it flies and has a stinger I have probably been stung by one working HVAC for 40 years.
Those buggers have about the most painful sting of anything I've ever been zapped by. One of 'em got me on my right elbow about 20 years ago and it swelled up and locked. DAMN! Took almost a week to feel normal again.
Mean buggers you need a can of hairspray and a lighter
A squirt of 'brake kleen' makes them lie down and go to sleep (forever).
Looks like a bald faced hornet to me. Nasty hornets.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
I consider these to be the worst of all bees. Them buggers have vengeance programmed into their make-up! Once had one chase me a quarter mile and nailed me 3 times on the back of my neck. I had thrown a makeshift spear through their hive that was hanging from a horse stable's window opening. I made the shot from the seat of my bicycle as I was peddling away at a fairly fast speed.
Got all the way to the corner when I stopped, thinking I was safe. NOPE!!!!😣
That's for sure. Their stings are awful.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Can we send a bus load of those to Martha Vineyards.
I got hit in the face by one.
Got in behind the right lens of my glasses and stung me twice right below my lower eyelid. I don't think my own mother would have recognized me.
but they can't be near as bad as those nasty "murder hornets" we have been warned about..........
I was stung just above the ear by what we call Japanese hornets.They look like a yellow jacket almost the size of your thumb.For about 3 days after the sting it felt like a pair of vice grips clamped on the side of my head.
You guys be careful out there!!!
Doctors will tell ya that as "we" age, our body chemistry changes.........and can possibly leave us vulnerable, with us none the wiser.
I.E..........one sting.......in the wrong place......at the wrong time(years on the odometer).......can KILL ya!!!!! (I've a few friends that have an EPI pen in the refrigerator)
Just a friendly fair warning.
I only do HVAC part time with a friend who owns a company.......but MAN...........those wasps love to nest in AC equipment. Wasp/Hornet spray is a staple on the truck.
We don't seem to have the worst variants of stinging insects here, so your mileage may vary. What I have found in my over half-century on this planet is that very few like to fly in the dark. If you don't live near well lit areas, go out after dark and knock their nest down and crush it when they fall with it. We knock down paper wasp, hornets, mud dobbers, etc. in this way after dark and I have never been stung this way. We knock it down and leave. Give it a few minutes, and shine the light on it to find the spot, then we go walk right over to it and stomp it flat. In day time, I have been stung just being within 30 feet of their nest.
Another funny story unrelated to that, when I was a kid my dad had cut this hay field. A day or so later I went over and raked it. I noticed I had stirred up some type of wasps or hornets but I just put the throttle down and sped on out and wasn't bothered. However, when I was running the big round baler, I got tagged. But, I found their nest and put a bale on the opening. LOL We were not bothered the rest of the field as we finished it up. However, no one mentioned to our hired hand the reason that one bale was out in the middle of the field. He got tagged a few times when he went to get that last bale. Sorry Bob.
Just this summer I noticed a nest being built on the backside of our farm house on the garage which has a low roof. It was on the soffit and about the size of a softball. I have an H&R 929 that is nearly a smoothbore from shooting nothing but rat shot for 40 years so I loaded her up and hoped I wouldn't get stung. When I got close I ran in quick and blasted it from about 2-3 feet. It looked like a bomb had gone off in it. I wish I could have gotten it on video; I was very impressed. They never rebuilt, either.
Entomology lesson my friend. Hornets are not bees, they are wasps. Big wasps. Paper wasps, mud daubers, yellow jackets and a lot of solitary wasps like tarantula hawks, cicada killers and horn tails are all wasps. Wasps can sting multiple times and do not die. Bees for the most part have one shot, and stinging rips the stinger and venom duct and sac out of their bodies and they die. The critical part with eusocial wasps is that when they sting they also spray a pheromone that says to the rest of the colony, "ENEMY STING HERE!" If stung, beat feet. There are wasps, like the German wasps, the "killer hornets" and others that can mass enough stings to kill a human. A zoo colleague in Indiana was killed by German wasps.