Stung By A Wasp Today….

[NoTeleBob]

Someone told me that once you’ve been stung by yellow jackets that they mark you with a pheromone that always identifies you as an “enemy”….I wonder if there’s any truth to that.

Naw, yellowjackets consider everyone the enemy. Just downright nasty creatures. Just walk near their nest and it's game-on. Wasps, OTOH, are generally very docile unless "threatened". But if you surprise one, that can be a threat. I think the wasp in the OP's case was probably on the Amazon package or under it and it got worried.

@trandy9850: that's a fairly substantial reaction to a wasp bite. Unless it got you in some particularly vulnerable area, like into a vein, etc, it's an indicator that what @Skydog1010 said: You are the type of person that needs to own an Epi pen and needs to train themselves and your wife in using it.

 

['64 Tele]

I got stung by a yellow jacket yesterday while weed eating.
It got me right on the bone on outside of my ankle.
Felt like a combination of being shot with a pellet gun and zapped with an electric cattle prod.
Popped a couple Benadryl tabs, put a baking soda poultice on it, but it hurt like hell for hours.
First time I'd been wasp stung in 55 years. Don't remember it hurting that bad last time, but I had more hair then......

 

[Refugee]

I have to spray a Yellowjacket nest tonight. Wish me luck.

oh, and sorry about your sting. I posted a very similar thread a few years back.

Cheers,
Geoff

The best stuff I've found is called, "Wasp Stopper." Hit a nest and about a dozen of them came flying out and none of them made it more 10 feet before falling to the ground, dead.

 

[AAT65]

Wasp stings are amazingly painful for a while! Last time I was stung by one it got caught in my jacket so the little b#¥¥€r stung me again before I got him shaken loose.
However as my (German Jewish) grandma always said, “Vinegar for vasps: bicarbonate for bees”. At least according to her knowledge wasp stings are alkaline, so mild acid (vinegar) neutralises them most quickly: while bee stings are acid (and nastier in other ways too) so a bicarbonate (alkaline) solution neutralises them quicker.
I’m not an etymologist so I cannot vouch for the truth of this mid-20th Century folk wisdom!

 

[billy logan]

Last week I rolled over on dead wasp and it stung me on the back. Examined the perp: definitely long dead.

THEN! 'bout 2 days ago, I cupped a grasshopper in my hands to charitably put it outside and it bit me. It must have bitten a shallow nerve coz it felt like it had broken the skin, but it hadn't. That was a first - and I'm old

Drought was so bad in 2000 the grasshoppers were eating bark off the elm trees.

 

[old soul]

They hurt! Last I got stung was from a bumble bee. It stung my between 2 fingers. I had swatted it away after it flew into me. Didn't know what it was.
I remember as a kid, my brother got stung by a hornet behind an ear. Next day he woke up and looked like he had the mumps. Swollen up bad on one side

 

[Geoff738]

The best stuff I've found is called, "Wasp Stopper." Hit a nest and about a dozen of them came flying out and none of them made it more 10 feet before falling to the ground, dead.

I just used some Raid all around bug killer. Probably not the strongest stuff but what we had on hand. Afaik just one entrance/exit between two bricks beside a window. Not sure how long but given the amount of comings and goings there’s quite a few in there. Ugh.

Cheers,
Geoff

 

[Killing Floor]

Sorry you got stung. It sucks. Wasps are evil and have no value to ecology.

When I get stung it makes me feel better to spray their nest with water and step on them so they can see my boot coming. Chemical pesticides work quickly but I want them to see the guy they stung as their last vision. The water drops them temporarily so they’re exposed. Then after I stomp on them I spray the foam on their nest so their eggs die. It’s all about perspective. It’s good for them to suffer.

 

[jackinjax]

I've gone 60 odd years now since a honeybee flew up my tee shirt and stung me. My tobacco chewing great grandfather happened to be visiting and applied a Big Daddy "special poultice" to the sting. Stopped hurting almost immediately.
The next time I received his special poultice I was hanging my head out of the back window of our '59 Ford station wagon (no a/c) and he spit it out the front window. Hit me right in the eye. It didn't have the same soothing effect, and in fact stung for hours.

 

[Monoprice99]

I usually spray their nests before they've become too attached to the house. That 2 pack of 25+ foot wasp spray is the most fun anyone should ever have with their clothes on.

 

[Tenderfoot]

I got stung in the eyelid by a honeybee, in the early 50's, while picking strawberries at my uncle's place in eastern Ohio. Since then, I haven't been stung again (in over 70 years).

 

[Ricky D.]

Was carrying one end of a sleep sofa down a hill to get in a back door. Stepped on a ground nest and those critters went right up my pants leg. Bad day that was.

 

[Randy07ACV6]

Yellowjackets have always been my problem. Mowing the lawn (push mower) at one sister's and ran over a nest that was in the ground. Left the mower, ran like hell and only got stung a couple times.
My sister thanked me for finding the nest. We wiped it out with a couple cans of bug spray.

 

[haggardfan1]

When I was a kid, on a farm in Shelby County, Texas, I once picked up an axe lying on the ground and stuck it into a partially burned old stump. Yellow jackets boiled out of it and stung me everywhere. If I'd been allergic, I wouldn't be here today. My dad had me alternate bleach water and Aveeno tub baths until the stings abated. It was miserable, and I didn't feel well for a couple days.

Later in life, when I was probably in my thirties, I was pressure washing the vinyl siding on my house at the time.

I had a double carport with a drive gate behind it, that gave access to my backyard, shed, etc. I had my dog in the house, and had walked back and forth underneath the carport probably dozens of times...dragging hoses and the extension cord through the open double gate.

When I was almost finished, I was under the carport and got that feeling of being watched. I looked up, saw a small nest, and either a Yellow jacket or hornet promptly flew down and stung me on the top of my right forearm. I don't recall it hurt like a red wasp sting, but my wrist swelled and got tight immediately, and I started feeling kinda loopy and weird. It was in the hot summertime, and I had to go inside and sit down for about an hour before I could even put away all the equipment.

I'm sorry you got targeted, I hate stinging insects and snakes with an irrational passion.

 

[haggardfan1]

I usually spray their nests before they've become too attached to the house. That 2 pack of 25+ foot wasp spray is the most fun anyone should ever have with their clothes on.

LOL you're exactly right! Few things get faster results, or are more comforting and satisfying. You kinda feel victorious.

 

[archetype]

Decades ago a buddy and I were drinking those short, squatty bottles of Blatz beer while sitting on the tailgate of his truck. A yellowjacket had crawled or fallen into his bottle and stung him on the tongue. Lots of heart arrhythmia that settled down before I could dial 911. He survived and a lesson was learned:

Don't drink Blatz beer.

 

[Skydog1010]

I got stung by a yellow jacket yesterday while weed eating.
It got me right on the bone on outside of my ankle.
Felt like a combination of being shot with a pellet gun and zapped with an electric cattle prod.
Popped a couple Benadryl tabs, put a baking soda poultice on it, but it hurt like hell for hours.
First time I'd been wasp stung in 55 years. Don't remember it hurting that bad last time, but I had more hair then......

Consider yourself lucky I go into shock from yellowjackets. They get mean as hell in mid August through October around here. I would say September they are pissed 24/7, they know they have to get ready for a winter under ground and they sharpen their stingers. Little bastards damn near killed me when I was like 9 years old. Or maybe it was the chicken carp kid I was fighting that held me down in their nest in the Virginia red clay in my grandfather's back yard.

 

[String Tree]

Someone told me that once you’ve been stung by yellow jackets that they mark you with a pheromone that always identifies you as an “enemy”….I wonder if there’s any truth to that.

Much like Killer bees, the scent says ATTACK THIS RIGHT NOW!
Yellow Jackets don't lose their Stingers.
They just go and go and go.

 

[Skydog1010]

Much like Killer bees, the scent says ATTACK THIS RIGHT NOW!
Yellow Jackets don't lose their Stingers.
They just go and go and go.

Bumble bees same thing, got one in my shirt, stung me 13 times.

 

[Skydog1010]

Much like Killer bees, the scent says ATTACK THIS RIGHT NOW!
Yellow Jackets don't lose their Stingers.
They just go and go and go.

When I got stung 117 times at age 9, I had dead bees all over me. Please explain?