For pain from a single critter, try having a cow killer crawl up your trouser leg and sting you four times, starting at the top of the knee and moving down.
I had calf muscle poking out of a calf injury myself. I’ve also been stung by yellowjackets (like another poster, they built a nest and I ran the lawnmower over it).
In terms of subjective pain, the yellow jackets were far worse, though only for a few hours. The calf injury peaked when they were stitching the muscle fascia back together (maybe a 7) and mostly hung out at 4-6 for a couple of months. Worse overall, but definitely not hitting the peak.
it might be dependent on which specific species, but the yellowjackets we have in Michigan are paper wasps, and tend to build their nests in or on wood structures. my building has wood facings and I’ve hosed down a couple of nascent yellowjacket nests with “insta-seizure” hornet and wasp spray.
seriously, these things are dicks.
ETA: apparently the yellowjackets which build paper nests are German Wasps. So that’s what I have by me. the ground-nesters are other species.
Alternate Hyperbole and a Half link. The Brosh pain scale is pretty great.
Several years ago I ran over a nest with a lawnmower. One sting happened pretty quickly, and holy shit did I run fast; I escaped with only the one. I put ice on it right away to reduce the swelling.
Instead I got weird blue and red lines going up and down my leg that lasted for about a week and made walking very painful. I’m not sure whether it was infected, whether I used too much ice and damaged myself via minor frostbite, whether I had an allergic reaction, or what–but that’s when I discovered the joys of Terminix.
This afternoon we discovered another yellowjacket nest in our front yard, about five feet from where our preschooler was playing in the pool. Terminix is coming out tomorrow.
(Yeah, I know I can spray 'em myself. I’ve had bad luck getting the spray to work fully, and am willing to pay a professional to get rid of the fuckers for real.)
I love Allie. I’ve bought her Hyperbole and a Half calendar twice in a row, and I hope she makes a 2017 version.
That said, fuck all bugs that sting or bite. I’ve not been stung by anything yet, which of course means I’ve now jinxed it, and wasps are forming a coalition in my garage now in order to ambush me.
Granted, I live up north so we don’t have acid-spraying sting weevils or whatever the southern states get but I got stabbed in the fingertip by a bald-faced hornet once and I could feel the burn from that clear down to my elbow for far too long. Little shit left a quarter inch slice in my fingertip too instead of just making a puncture wound.
Huh, according to wiki, it’s a type of yellowjacket so I guess I’m on topic.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s urine that helps. Now, get back here. Well, stay still and it won’t splash in your face.
Exactly. Baking soda works wonders not only on stings, but on mosquito bites.
Wasps, OTOH, need vinegar. Evidently their venom is alkaline, while yellow jackets and bees is acidic.
Haha one of my earliest childhood memories was seeing a bee buzzing about a plant, but I didn’t really know what a bee was or what it did. All I thought was “dur it looks fuzzy” and I tried to pet the bee and it promptly stung the shit out of me right on my finger. It was one of those important life lessons.
This weekend I wound up with about a dozen welts on my neck and shoulders from chiggers or oak mites or something. The itching is driving me crazy, but reading through this thread makes me feel a little better. Stings would have been a lot worse!
I’m sorry but…what on earth is a “cow killer”?
And how are you alive?
One of the more painful stings, in my experience, is that of the white-faced hornet. They are like yellowjackets on steroids. 
(I know they are a closely related species, but they are much larger).
Presumably, because he’s not a cow. 
It’s a common name for a species of solitary wasp that looks like an ant (hence its other name, the “velvet ant”).
Reputed to have a truly ferocious sting. Thankfully, I’ve never experienced it.
Aka the bald-faced hornet. I concur
Or he’s four times larger than a cow :eek:
Some heavy equipment had gone through the off leash area where I go with my dogs and had run over a few wasps nests, making the wasps cranky and defensive. I had no idea of this until I see one of my dogs spinning in circles frantically. I run over, realize she has wasps on her, knock off the ones I can see, and then realize some have flown up my shorts. I dropped my shorts and danced like a crazy woman. Wow, do they hurt, and for way too long.
The weirdest part was almost exactly a week later, the bites started itching like crazy.
Holy shit, that is a mean looking fucker.
Then you may appreciate this story.
Earlier this summer, my wife was walking into our house when she was stung on the arm, with a horribly painful sting that left a truly ugly rash and welt. The welt lasted a couple of weeks, terribly painful and itchy.
I knew this meant there was likely a wasp nest nearby, but I couldn’t find it at first. As it turns out, the nest was growing in our yard’s tree, on a branch hanging right over the sidewalk - it was hidden in the foliage so it was hard to see. I knew that it was starting to attack people walking on the sidewalk right in front of my house as being “too close”.
Worse, they were white-faced (aka bald-faced) hornets.
This wasn’t exactly the welcome mat I wanted for our place. So I resolved to kill the bastards. But I didn’t want to use poison, because of where the nest was located - right over the sidewalk. Our area has lots of little kids and pets, and I wasn’t sure if I could clean the poison up well enough.
So I had to use the drowning method. I got a bucket of water, an old pillow case, and some bricks. I waited until nightfall, put on a lot of clothes and thick gloves, and bagged the nest, trapping the wasps inside (that was a nervous moment, when they started to buzz angrily), clipped the nest free of the tree, then dropped the bag and nest into the bucket with bricks on top.
I was lucky: all went well, not a single sting. A couple of wasps escaped the trap. Interestingly, they must have sprayed the gloves with some sort of pheromone - the next day, I saw a wasp attacking one of the gloves I had tossed aside.
The drowned nest was interesting; it had about a hundred wasps in it, the queen (who was about one-third larger than the others), and nearly a hundred grubs: looked like the nest was set to double in size.
Things to remember about yellow jackets:
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Upon stinging you, they paint you with a pheromone which tells the entire colony, “This is dangerous. Kindly come kill it ASAP.” Thus, one sting frequently leads to many stings. If you cover the sting site (say, with your hand) while getting out of the area, you can minimize further damage. I was once doing field work in a remote area, and disturbed a nest. They began stinging me, I ran 300-400 yards to my work truck, and while I was fumbling with my keys to get in, they were still stinging me. I had several under my shirt, and I received 20-25 stings on the ribcage. It felt like someone hit me in the chest with a bat for several days.
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They can live in enormous colonies (skip to about 45 seconds for the fun stuff).
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All that said, they can still be beneficial insects, as they are voracious predators of other pests.
I can’t help it - must post most awesome wasp video ever:
You know they are a problem when you have to ask the military to take them out with a damn flamethrower.Mistermage was running the mowing tractor (an actual tractor not a lawn one), got it parked back where it usually sits and suddenly saw numerous (as in a cloud of) wasps flying into a hole on the dash. Yeah, there was a nest in the dash and they wanted back in their home.
He just got stung flipping the flat bottom boat over last week. It wasn’t used last year and the wasps decided it made a really fine home.
One last painful story: when I was a wee lass I had hamsters. I liked taking them outside and letting them run around nibbling grass and clover. They came when called and usually didn’t wander far from me. But one day one of them (Hanky, I think… could have been his brother, Spanky, though) had wandered up next to the concrete porch.
Next thing I know he was battling with a Bumblebee and it stung him on the balls. Hamsters have very large balls for their size but his doubled up. I rushed him into the house and ran cold water over his parts. Then a slathering of meat tenderizer was applied.
He lived. He even fathered a litter.