You plan to stay in this house?
You’re from another planet, I can’t understand you at all.
I have a great house and I’m not letting wasps drive me out of it! I shall prevail eventually. If I don’t get them, the winter will.
Benedryl seemed to work although my foot is still a bit sore today. The bastard must have hit a nerve or something. The rest of the stings are fine, praise Baby Jesus.
Camping. Four moms, each with two kids. My son started running a fever, and since we were leaving in the AM anyway, I decided to bug out that evening. Started to breakdown my tent and discovered that some wasps nested in the tent pole sleeves on the tent. I stuck my hand, unawares, and the wasps attacked.
Then they went down my shirt!!
Seven stings on my hand and four on my breasts! Argggh!
Downed a ton of Benadryl and drove home (45 minutes) with my husband on phone in case I started having trouble breathing. My friends packed up everything for me and brought it home next day. Oh that hurt!
Don’t trust the winter, they will come back in the spring… I recommend pouring gasoline down the hole, and lighting the puppy up. When the ground reaches a nice, deep, red glow; lather, rinse and repeat.
No, really. I hate those things. Too many experiences; I will share the worst one in a second…
But first, as a bee keeper it really bothers me that people always state they were stung by bees. I have 3 bee hives in a suburban environment and in the 4 years I have had them, there have only been two stings. The first was when I dropped a bee covered frame on my foot and they all crawled up my pant leg (only one sting), and the second when my daughter was helping me hive a swarm (neither of us were wearing any protection) and a bee got caught in her hair. I regularly handle them without gloves or a veil and they don’t bother me. None of my neighbors have been stung either. Please lay off the whole bee sting thing, in most cases people are stung by wasps… Rant over.
Anyway, I had a nest of several thousand of those f’ing yellow jackets in the wall of my house once. I noticed them coming and going from a little hole on the outside of my house and mentally made a note to do something about it on my next free weekend. Several weeks later, we started to find them in the house, one or so a day. After about a week of this, I decided to just hire a professional (I was working a lot in those days) and called in an exterminator. He looked at the hole, then looked around inside (he never found how they were getting in the house), and said that the best he could do is dust the entrance with some poison that would be taken into the nest and would wipe them out. He recommended sealing the hole within a day or two, as they would all be dead. Well and good, I gave him the go ahead and started packing up to go work. He knocked on the door 5 minutes later, gave me an invoice, and left. 5 minutes after that, I started walking out the door when I noticed that my (future) wife’s cats were in a frenzy playing with something in the living room. I paused and went to see what was up and found them chasing a yellow jacket. Doing a double take, I saw several more, wait, not several, about 20-30 buzzing around. I swore, went to go grab a flyswatter and a jacket (to protect against stings) and by the time I came back (2 minutes tops), they had multiplied and there were at least a thousand wasps buzzing around in my living room. Not only that, but they were all seriously pissed off and coated in a fine white layer of poison and my cats were almost having orgasmic fits while trying to catch and eat them! Yeesh.
Only momentarily daunted, I waded into the swirling cloud, grabbed the cats and ran to a bathroom at the other side of the house. I locked us in a bathroom, but found my courage to go out a minute or two later and left (leaving the cats in there). I called in sick to work and got out a shop vac. I sat there for at least 4 hours with a can of wasp killer in one hand, and the shop vac in the other alternately spraying and sucking… The cats did not get stung, but I got about 4 stings that day. I hate those things.
Similar story for me, except it was the weed whacker. At first I thought a rock had hit my hand (it happens - debris and all). Then I saw the little wasp thing sitting there just stabbing away. And I was less manly about it and ran about flailing with the weed whacker before tossing it and getting into the house.
That night the ground nest got a can full of wasp killer followed by a severe pounding with the sledge hammer to seal it shut.
Guessing you no longer need the answer fast, but you don’t treat wasp stings with bicarb as you would bee stings. Wasp stings are alkaline, so bicarb won’t help although it’s too weak to make things worse. If anything, use vinegar or lemon juice to neutralise them.
My mom, I guess about 15 years ago or so, was stung by a bunch of yellow jackets in our back yard. She must have disturbed their nest. They stung her through her clothes, including her bathing suit. They went after one of the dogs too. I was there but already in the pool. She and the dog jumped in the pool jumped in to try to get away from them(actually she tossed the dog in). The yellow jackets didn’t follow. She and the dog recovered.
The old family remedy for yellowjackets is to locate the hole and return to it with a can of gasoline in the evening (when they’re all but inactive). Pour about a half quart of gasoline in the hole and get away. Wait 10 minutes and they’ll all be dead or vacated. Then splash a bit more gas and ignite (this destroys the nest so it won’t be recolonized. Also it’s emotionally satisfying).
I’m sure some armchair entomologist will be along to tell me why this method is full of crap, but I affirm that not only has it been effectively used many dozens of times. And did I mention the deep emotional satisfaction?
I’m more of an armchair insect feeding ground than entomologist, so I’ll leave the extermination methods to those more experienced. From an allergic perspective, though - I haven’t been stung recently, but I have been on a first-name basis with chiggers, fleas, mosquitoes, and biting flies of all descriptions this summer - I’m a big fan of diphenhydramine gel. The rubbing alcohol in it helps soothe the itch, and it doesn’t leave nearly as much residue as the cream, so you can keep reapplying until it works and not worry about sliming your clothing.
Before I discovered the gel, my go-to local therapy for an aggravating insect bite/sting was to put 1 metric crapload each of Benadryl cream and cortisone cream on the wound and then bandage it so that the creams were being “rubbed” in constantly and could not get worn off. I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison with huge amounts of gel, though, so I can’t vouch for the relative effectiveness of the two methods.
Hope you continue to heal quickly!
Two days later and my foot still hurts. Needless to say, I am a bit hesitant to go searching for the hole. My dad recommended the gasoline thing too but, honestly, I’m a bit leery with the grass so dry and all. How big of a hole am I looking for? Obviously, I know roughly where to look but I’m not thrilled to be going back into their territory again. Right now it’s wasps - 6, Surly - 0…
In my case the hive hole was small. The size of a dime or nickle. The little stinging bastards left me alone if I just hovered nearby. I’d recommend going out during the day while they’re active so you can see them go in and out, then spend the rest of the day planning your attack. They’re not active at night so are less of a threat to you then. You can buy wasp spray that is not likely to ignite your dry grass 
(though I agree with the above poster that it would be emotionally satisfying – I imagine airborne fireballs buzzing around and dropping. That should be in a movie.)
Here is a site with non-flamable killing instructions.
Cover wasp stings with liquid soap. It works.
using gasoline like this is dangerous. in a few seconds enough gas can evaporate to create a fireball many feet in diameter. you can easily burn yourself and start a grass fire. the fire doesn’t burn underground anyway because there isn’t enough air.
flying insect spray in the hole will kill many instantly. shoot a stream in the hole, the vapors will kill. you may need to do more than once but you will get them all.
the size of a quarter.
gas is dangerous and not effective. a serious fire hazard to your person and property.
go near the area and position yourself to get a background to see the insects well. in the evening before sunset they will return in great numbers so there are more to see though there is less light so a clear sky is better.
once you find it put a marker (skinny rod, coat hanger wire with a tape flag on top) a few inches from the hole to find it again. if you have a string trimmer cut around the hole to make it exposed so it is easy to treat, observe and avoid.
nuke 'em from orbit. it’s the only way to be sure. 
when i was little, dear old dad also did the gasoline thing. repeatedly. new jersey seems to be the home state for ground wasps. and moles.
the dog and i blundered into a nest. once. i’ve never been stung so many times before or since. the dog too, although she survived without mishap. i was kind of a mess for a while afterward.
that’s when he started looking for holes in the ground, and between the wasps and the moles he was a busy, busy man.
never burned the house down or caused any kind of property damage, but he always had a hose ready and waiting. just in case.
I feel for you, Scubaqueen!
I really hate killing things - live and let live and all that - but I worry about the dog. He doesn’t have the brains God gave him…
I was doing field work in a national park here in Alabama once, and after a long, hot day in late summer, we were walking back to our truck when my collaborator yelled “OW!”
A yellowjacket had stung her right above the eyelid. She was in a shit-ton of pain, but she wasn’t allergic, so it wasn’t life-threatening.
Holy shit. Suddenly, I felt a sharp sting on my ankle. Then one on my elbow. My co-worker started flailing around like crazy, and I knew she was under attack. We both start sprinting for the truck, still 200-300 yards away.
FUCK! One got under my T-shirt and was enthusiastically stabbing for all it was worth, right on my ribcage. I felt a sting on my neck, and one (or more) right on my beltline, above my right hip. Then one on the back of my knee.
We’re both at a dead run by this time. She’s trying to cover the original sting, since it was probably the alarm pheromone left by the original insect that set us up for a mass attack, but it’s fruitless. There’s so much pheromone smeared on us at this point that every yellowjacket in the county is making a beeline (ha!) to kill us.
Finally the attack tapered off. We got back to the truck in agony, and paused outside to see if we were OK, if either of us were about to go anaphylactic.
Big mistake. Suddenly the attacks started up again. I got stung on my left jaw, the top of my head, and between the fingers on my right hand before we managed to get in the truck. We had to kill two of the little fuckers in the cab. My co-worker had also been stung multiple times.
It was bad. I can’t recall ever having been in quite that much pain. The stings on my ribcage (there were several) were particularly awful. They felt like someone had hit me in the ribs with a baseball bat. They hurt so bad that I literally could not straighten my body to a full standing position until the next morning.
Same here, happened twice. The second time was on a riding mower and I had to abandon the mower while it was still running. I think I managed to get it in Neutral though.
I’m not sure how long it takes them to establish a colony, but might be a good argument for keeping your yard mowed regularly.
Damn. Persistent wasps. Are you sure they were yellow jackets? I have never had them chase me like that. Now I am going back on what I said up thread. I hear that Africanized honey bees will pursue like that, could they have been bees?