I’ve always wondered about HORNETS, and how they must have sucha a NASTY STING, since they’re so frickin’ HUGE. However, I’ve never been stung by a HORNET, although just about every other wasp or bee.
I didn’t notice much of a DIFFERENCE in any of them, personally. Luckily I’m not one of those people who are DEATHLY ALLERGIC to wasp/bee stings–and really this question wouldn’t apply to those types of people.
What info I did find led me to BELIEVE that HORNET stings aren’t much DIFFERENT from other wasps or bees. They deliver a bigger total dosage, but it’s weaker.
I want to personally thank you for reminding of the following episode of my youth, which I so very much had hoped I would be able to forget.
When I was about 6 years old I was walking through from our yard to an adjoining one and I had to sort of push aside a portion of a huge mock-orange bush to do so. In doing so I upset a hornet’s nest. I was stung a number of times, the worst of which was by the hornet THAT GOT STUCK BEHIND MY GLASSES AND STUNG ME IN TH EYE.
Words fail me. I think I’ve blocked most of it out because I can’t honestly recall what happened after that - I know that I woke up in the hospital and the side of my face was the size of a basketball.
These were what we’ve always called bald faced hornets - black with white around their heads.
Yes, I’ve been stung by a HORNET, as well as a BEE (though not at the same time thankfully). I have to say that hurt more then the one time I stepped on a TACK.
Reminds me of another time when I was bitten by a NEIGHBOR’S DOG. Damn, did that hurt. Luckily, it was a POODLE and not a ROTTWEILER!
I must say that this randomly writing a word in capitals is DISORIENTING and CONFUSING me.
I’ve been stung by a HORNET. That hurt, but not so much as you would think. I’ve watched someone stung by a VELVET ANT, which go by the colloquial name of COWKILLER hereabouts. If the reaction is anything to judge by, they earned the name.
The yellow jackets are by far the worst. First of all, they are obnoxious and mean; they’ll come AFTER you for no particular reason, zigging and zagging all around you, then BANG!!! The other wasps and hornets pretty much just defend their nests or go after you if you intimidate them in close quarters (such as if they get inside).
Damn yellow jacket stings feel like someone put out a cigar by grinding it out slowly against your skin.
I’ve heard people say that the velvet ants are worse by a quantum leap, and that getting stung by a bumblebee is a lot like driving a 10d nail through your forearm. I hope I never have the opportunity to verify those.
I’ve been stung by a honeybee, a bumblebee, a scorpion, and bitten by a tarantula. The worst was the scorpion, the least painful was the tarantula, but I think it didn’t inject any venom into me, just stuck me with his fangs a bit to let me know I wasn’t holding him right.
I decide to join the local MOMS Club because I hadn’t discovered writing or the internet yet and I needed adult contact since I was home alone with the kids. Number 3 hadn’t been born yet; Number 2 was a few months old.
I go to the meeting, held at the chapter president’s house. I don’t know a soul. I’m extremely shy anyway; it’s hard for me to meet people. So I’m just kind of milling around the yard, hoping someone will take pity on me and talk to me first.
Suddenly, I hear a buzzing sound near my ear. I bat it away. More buzzing. Now I can see something out of the corner of my eye. It’s big, black and flying. It sounds pissed. I bat it away again, and start to move away. Next thing I know I’m surrounded by many big, black buzzing flying things. They’re in my hair (I have thick, curly hair). One’s trying to crawl into my ear. My older daughter (7 at the time) is running away and screaming. Baby is in my arms; I’m trying to hold her close to me to protect her. Now bees are in my shirt and I feel many of them tangled in my hair. Now I’m screaming. Someone grabs the baby out of my arms and screams at me to run for the house. My shoulders, back, neck and scalp are being stung repeatedly. I have no choice; I rip off my shirt in front of 30 women and children I’ve never met before and run for the house in my bra, hands flailing through my hair trying to brush out the bees.
I get to the back door where some of the women are waiting with towels to wrap me in, and bat away the rest of the bees. I burst into tears out of fear, pain and embarrassment.
Later find out the chapter president had sprayed the yard to try and kill bees, but instead only succeeded in pissing them off. Others were stung, but nobody had the same horrific experience I did.
I had nightmares for weeks after, and I still break out into a sweat if I hear any type of insect buzzing near me, even six years later.
I was stung by a velvet ant a few weeks ago. I was out in my yard building a raised bed garden using cedar limbs for the wall on the low side. I picked up a limb without noticing the velvet ant under it until I felt a stabing pain in my finger. I tried to shake the velvet ant loose, but it had it’s stinger buried deep into my finger. I finally had to pull the ant off and throw it away from me. It hurt bad for about ten minutes, but in about twenty minutes the pain was all gone. I had a nice little punture mark for about two weeks, but no other damage. I wouldn’t want to repeat the experiance, but it really wasn’t all that bad.
There was a young man from St. Bees
Who was stung on the nose by a Wasp
When asked “did it hurt?”
He replied “Yes it did”
“But I’m so glad it wasn’t a Hornet!”
Hard to find a photo of a velvet ant that really does them justice ( some of them are suprisingly…well, “cute” I guess, for want of a better word - In a cuddly, fuzzy sort of way ), but here’s one shot ( by the way they come in various shades of yellow, white, orange, and red ):
I have heard anecdotally that the stings from four-inch long Tarantula-Hawks ( wasps, Pepsis formosa, that paralyze tarantulas with their stings and then lay their eggs on the body to provision their young ) are about the worst in North America. I won’t swear that it’s true, but I can well believe it. Not only do these wasps look about the size of 747’s ( and sound just as loud ) when you see them tooling by in person, but their sting is very large and visible and designed to take out a big tarantula. Here’s a shot of one, that doesn’t give a lot of perspective, but believe me, they’re HUGE:
When you guys in the USA say ‘hornet’ how big an insect are you describing?
In the UK, amongst other things, we have ‘wasps’ (which you call yellowjackets I believe), and Hornets which are the same sort of thing, but about the size of a man’s thumb and mean as hell, the sting of a single hornet can be fatal.
~~I think our HORNETS are of European origin…
not sure! but you’re talking the right size
YELLOWJACKETS are just like AHunter3 said…
they do everything at full throttle…they’re on
speed!!! They tend to make nests in the ground and that is
bad…like a land mine~~~
Usually hundreds or more in a nest. They’re very small and care only about themselves…
is this what you have?
Yup, got stung by a yellow jacket at about age 2 1/2. It’s my first really vivid memory. I was sick for days and even now, almost 4 decades later, I have a visible pit in my arm to remind me.
Yes, it certainly seems (from my research on Google) that yellowjackets are the same thing as the European wasp (Vespula Vulgaris).
I got stung about a dozen times or so by these fellas last year; it was nasty.
The hornets we’ve had in the garden scare me more though; they are much more aggressive and their size makes them quite intimidating. We’ve only had one come into the house; they seem quite difficult to kill; repeated hard bashing with a heavy magazine only annoyed it.
I’ve been stung by hornets, though never by Velvet Ants. The absolute worst thing I’ve ever been stung by is the giant black Folofa ant (Paraponera). These suckers are a good inch long, shiny black, and truly evil looking. I stepped on a nest a couple of months ago and got stung five times. I swear it feels like being walloped HARD with a red hot poker. I was still limping six hours later. I know someone who ended up in the hospital after being stung by a just a few. And the ants that live in the thorns of Bullhorn Acacias, although smaller, are just about as bad.