As a kid, I had a very extensive insect collection, including many types of bees . . . Plus, I always liked to play with any kind of small critter I encountered . . . Plus, my father was an avid gardener, so we always had a yard full of flowers, and therefore, bees . . . Plus, there were a lot more bees around back then than there are now.
All of this adds up to probably 2-3 dozen bee stings. All I remember is that they hurt like hell for a while, then hurt less, then stopped hurting. It had a far greater effect on the bees than on me.
1) Have you ever been stung (by any flying insect)? Yes.
2) If so, what do you remember about your first experience being stung? How serious an effect did it have on you, both physically and psychologically? I was about…ohhh, five or six, maybe? I stepped on a bee while barefoot. Hurt like a bitch, and I ran crying home to mommy.
**3) How many times have you been stung overall?**Well, there was the time mentioned above, three times while I was mowing lawns (one of which was a full-on swarm of wasps…that hurt more than I ever want to experience ever again), and the incident documented here.
First time, when I was about 7 or 8, by a bee, on my neck. It swelled up like a marble under the skin. It hurt for the rest of the day.
Never was stung by a bee again, but by numerous wasps. Once by the pool (do they hang out around pools on purpose or what?), once IN BED on the hand, once in the ear. Yellowjacket stings are not nearly as bad as bee stings and go away in a couple of hours.
I have never had a mosquito bite in my life. Or, maybe I have but they don’t leave a welt or anything. I consider myself very lucky in this regard.
My friend Vito once accidentally swallowed a wasp that was in his soda. He got stung in his esophagus and had to go to the hospital because it swelled up inside. Plus, ewww, he ate the wasp that did it! :eek: Hydrocholoric acid seems too kind a fate for it, even.
When I was, oh about 3 or 4, I grabbed a yellow jacket nest that was being used by the yellow jackets at that moment. According to my mother, I had about four different stings on my hand.
A couple of years later I was climbing a tree and got another yellow jacket sting. This time I ran to the next door neighbor’s, who got the stinger out.
Since then, yes, I freak whenever I get near flying things with stingers.
I grew up living in Florida. Oh yeah, been stung more than a few times. Worked a few years on a survey crew, in the woods, in the swamps of Florida. Oh yeah.
Black wasps, red wasps, yellow jackets, honey bees, bumble bees. If it flys and stings, we’ve met.
First time I don’t know. I remember as a kid swatting a bee off a bush into the grass and before he could take off I stepped on him…barefoot. Bad plan.
Pulled some logs out of a stack once and my arm came out covered in wasps. As I recall there were 6 or 7 hits. Stirred up a yellow jacket nest on more than one occasion with between 5 and 8 stings in each case. I have seen what happens to friends when a hornet flies straight into their helmet at 60 mph and they can’t get to it. My survey foreman got hit right between the eyes with a huge red wasp and he dropped like a sack of bricks. He said it felt like he had been shot with a .22.
The last sting I got was when a yellow jacket was buzzing around the face of my (then) 2 yo and I grabbed him out of the air a squished him in my hand but not before being stung.
I probably minded that one the least of any I’ve had.
If you don’t know, ammonia acts as an anti-toxin and relives the pain and minimizes the swelling. When we were in the field surveying and away from the truck, you can take some tobacco from a cigarette and dampen it with saliva and pack it onto the sting site. This works well also. I can attest first hand to both.
I’ve been stung several times, by both bees and wasps, though not since I was a child. No significant physical or mental trauma - frankly, jellyfish stings hurt worse. I don’t remember the first time.
The only memorable time was when a wasp somehow got stuck in my jeans! It managed to sting my legs at least five or six times before I could wiggle out of them. I was probably six or seven at the time so I wasn’t too traumatised by being outside sans pants either.
Yes, a couple of wasp and bee stings. The wasp stings were when I was quite young, I don’t remember them, but my mother does. The bee sting…I put my hand down in the grass, which was harboring a bee, who defended herself. I was in the third grade, so I would have been 9 years old, I guess. I’m allergic to bee stings, it was my right hand, I’m right handed, and it was the end of the school year, when we were taking finals and standardized tests. I’ve never had pretty handwriting, but that year it was even worse than ever. I couldn’t bend the fingers on my hand much at all. It was painful and very itchy.
I’m wary about any stinging or biting insects, but not really afraid of them. If I see a bee, I hold still and see if it won’t go about its business. I don’t like wasps or mosquitoes, but I do rather like bees, and if I weren’t allergic I think that I’d like to keep a few hives. They’re interesting beneficial insects.
I’ve spent my lifetime working mostly outside, in the fields and forests of Florida and Alabama, so I’m guessing I’ve been stung well over 200 times.
No big deal, really, and I can’t remember a “first sting”.
I’d rank 'em as follows, from most to least painful:
Can wasps “get used” to being around people? I have a gigantic nest right outside my back door and despite walking under it on an almost daily basis, they never sting me or even fly at me. Cleaned the gutter right above them, still nothing, and these are yellowjackets we’re talking about here. They flew around me a little, then shrugged their little striped shoulders and went away.
Needless to say, their indifference to me seemed weird. I haven’t wasted those buggers yet because none of them have stung me yet… unlike the nest of one that stung me right in the ear last summer. Those guys were terminated with extreme prejudice.
Sorry for the hijack… it could be related to the question “were you traumatized?” to which the answer would be, “every time I get stung, it bothers me less, not more, so no, I’m the opposite of traumatized. I cohabitate with the bastards willingly now.” Stockholm Syndrome may be at work.
A bee flew into my sandal once and stung me on the ball of my foot. It was a toe-curling sort of pain, a lot like whacking the funny bone something fierce; I kicked the bee out of my shoe, curled my toes in so my foot arched (which felt like it hurt less) and went and got myself an ice cream (I was heading that way at the time anyway). The sensation faded more slowly than an elbow-whack, probably over the course of an hour or two.
After a little while it occurred to me that it had probably stung me. (I’m not always that with it, and it had been a long, hot day.)
From your description, I don’t think you have yellowjackets. Yellowjackets normally nest below ground, or they may build up the side of a building or into an abandoned car from below ground. I’ve never seen a yellowjacket nest located as you describe. Also, yellowjackets are typically very aggressive, and would likely have stung somebody before now.
You may have some other variety of wasp that is not very aggressive, as many wasps aren’t easily stirred up.
These creatures have yellow and black stripes, so I just assumed. The nest looks like this. They look just like the ones that stung me last year, but these haven’t been interested in me. What are they?
I got stung about ten times by carpenter bees when I was six. The old lady across the street was watering her flowers (her front yard was like a jungle), and she must have disturbed a nest. I had huge red marks all over my body, and you can still see the spots where I got stung. Later on I discoverd bee stings didn’t really hurt after that.
1) Have you ever been stung (by any flying insect)?
Yes, I’ve had bee stings
2) If so, what do you remember about your first experience being stung? How serious an effect did it have on you, both physically and psychologically?
First time I was stung was when I was 16 and in Austria. I stepped on a bee, and it was barely painful at all. Maybe those european bees are nicer or something, but it gave me a false sense of security. The second time, I was stung on my wrist and it hurt like a somabitch. When I woke up the next morning, my forearm looked rather like Popeye’a. It turned out that I got cellulitis from the sting. My doctor told me that I should ask the bees to wash up before they sting me next time. :dubious:
How many times have you been stung overall?
Just the twice. Now I’m paranoid about unhygienic bees!
I’ve been stung a few times, but my strangest experience was w/ a blister bug. It was in VN and I’d heard about several guys being exposed, but I was very surprised when it happened to me. It apparently ocurred while I was asleep. I awoke in the morning w/ a very ugly, worm like, blister just above my upper lip. A friend of mine was a corpsman and he ID’d the situation. I think he gave me some kind of salve to put on it, but it was very painful to the touch for a couple of days. I don’t think I ever actually saw one of the creatures, but apparently they excrete something that causes the blistering.
Your site wouldn’t show the picture. I got a message; “We don’t allow off site links to larger images”. Whatever, my guess is some species of yellow/black colored wasp, but not yellowjackets, due to nest location.
Not telling you your business, but have you thought about whackin’ the little buggers before one of them does sting you? I mean, if you like skating on the edge, I’m cool with that, but there’s that old thing about discretion being the better part of valor.
I don’t remember it, but my parents told me that when I was a toddler we were out on a picnic in the middle of nowhere when a wasp got into my juice and stung me on the back of my tongue.
My father was preparing to perform a tracheoctamy with his pen knife, fortunately it was not necessary.
It is probably due to that, that I am an absolute sadist when it comes to wasps, I don’t enjoy killing things (although I relish the zap when a mosquito hits the lamp), but when it comes to wasps I relish giving them a lingering death. Quite peculiar.
I once walked down to a small creek that was outside of the apartment where my family lived. I was eleven. The creek looked nice. I turned around.
So it turns out that on the way down, I had stepped on a yellow jacket nest. I could see them buzzing toward me. One of them zapped straight to my face and stung me above the eye. I was running like the bajeezahs and it was only through luck that I was only stung once.
Yes, your paranoia about being stung is justified. How much it hurts if it isn’t above the eye, I don’t know.
