The hornet’s been hijacked by Al-Qaidi and has mistaken you for the Pentagon.
You should have mentioned that those were European Yellow Jackets. I figure they came from France and decided to teach the uppity American a lesson.
Ugh. My cousin’s husband was killed in the Pentagon crash. Not so funny for their kids, Bryan.
It means your Pacer or Gremlin seriously needs a tune-up.
Believe me, there are those of us who could die from one yellow jacket sting!
Most of you have been sooooooooo helpful. I’m not scared of bees much at all, and wasps only mildly scare me. But hornets are frightening, they look like inch long bees.
One of my fears with hornet repellent is that the hornet will get pissed off that i’m trying to kill him (damn him) and sting me. My parents had a yellowjacket infestation in their basement and when they used spray (I don’t think the spray was designed for yellowjackets particularly, it just said ‘winged insects’) the yellowjackets would still fly around for a few seconds before sailing to the ground. I figure that is probably long enough for a hornet to get in a death blow.
What does a wasp or hornet sting feel like? Is it worse than static electricity?
I’ve been stung by both wasps and hornets, but not often enough to become an expert on the distinction between the effects… to me the initial sting feels like being jabbed with a red-hot needle and the follow on is a throbbing and burning sensation. The nastiest - and also, so far, the last - sting I got was from a wasp that had crawled into my beer bottle. I went to take a swig and BAM it got me on the inside of my lower lip. For the next three or so hours it felt as if I’d been punched in the jaw.
There is a difference between repellent and poison.
One is like OFF, the other RAID.
Painful heat is my best description of a sting, too. Followed by throbbing which soon settles down to just being tender. But, ZOWIE! That initial hit of pain can really be intense, I don’t reccommend it at all. (Yes, I get stung often. I am a wasp magnate.)
There are two clear possibilities here:
-
The hornet has not been cleared for landing by the tower and has been put in a holding pattern.
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The hornet has been sucked into your gravity well and has gone into a low Wesley Clark orbit.
Take your pick.
Slight hijack:
I wanted to post this when I first saw the thread, and now I really want to know.
Is anyone else seemingly immune to stings? I’ve been stung twice by wasps (no not the human kind) and once by a hornet. The hornet sting left a reddish area akin to a minor rash, and the wasps left nothing more than a mosquito-bite sized bump.
Both caused no pain save the initial sting, and the worst reaction was little more than a slight itch. I’ve heard this is because I’m not allergic to the venom. Anyone else experience this?
End Hijack
They REALLY like your hairspray…
Every summer, without fail, me and my own personal little hole in the Ozone layer (I have THE most unmanageable hair EVER!!!) are HOUNDED by them flying wee beasties with the yellow-and-black stripey butts… Oh joy…
My husband had a yellowjacket do that to him as well. His lip swelled way up, he said it felt like it was going to burst, and it was hot and painful. We ended up using ice packs and antihistamines, and it took a couple days for the swelling to go away completely.
I once had a yellowjacket get down the back of my shirt and sting me about a dozen times in the back. I was freaking out and trying to get my jacket off, and the friends I was with thought I was just being squeamish about the yellowjacket that had been flying near us, until they saw my back when I flipped the shirt up, with the yellowjacket stinging me yet. Afterwards, my chest felt a little tight, and my breathing was a little restricted. It wasn’t bad enough to make me take an antihistamine, though.
duffer: I expect there’s a continuum of being “allergic” to their venom. On one end are the people who carry epi-pens because they could die from the sting, on the other are those who don’t notice anything, and most people probably fall in the middle somewhere with a “ouch, that still hurts” burning feeling.