I had one of those nests under the roof of my tool shed this summer, it was the size of a big grapefruit. Nine of them flew down and stung me.
Let me tell you the bald faced hornet will really bust your ass!
I was always told that if you get stung by a hornet, you know it. It is something unlike anything else.
In the summer of 1992, I was coming home from a long day at work. My son was playing with friends in the front yard . I got out of the car, shut the door and was walking up to the front door when I caught one on the upper lip. Indeed, I knew it was a hornet immediately. My wife saw me stagger into the house. I couldn't talk. I groped my way into the bathroom and found a tube of AfterBite and started applying it to the lip. She couldn't get anything out of me. She was hysterical (Wife 1.0 usually was) and thought I was having a stroke.
Eventually I choked out: "Hornet!" I then ordered her to get the kids away from the door and inside by way of the backyard. By this time the sting had grown to the size of a golf ball, and I wore that thing for several days at work before the swelling went down.
I called an exterminator within the hour and he came out after 10 PM and removed the nest. It cost me $100 and I was glad to pay it.
I have had a variety of stings before and since. Nothing else compares.
my wife went to the doctor twice for one yellow jacket sting.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -Ernest Hemingway The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.-- Edward John Phelps
I saw 2 nests close together once hanging over the backwaters in the river here at home. The temperature was in the 20s and there had already been several hard frosts. I idled up to the trees they were in and killed the engine. When the boat bumped the tree Hornets started dropping out of the nest looking for me. I got the motor fired up and got away before they got to me but it was a close call. I have never been stung by one but have heard they hurt the most.
Laugh out loud I've told the story on here before how the Hornets like building their nest over the rivers we'd find them go find a Gravel Bar load it up with a bunch of rocks and swing up above the river and Float by slinging rocks at it never really hit it get them all pissed off cuz you're hitting the branches keep doing it then one time a chunk of it broke off and the branch swinging back ....slung the Chunk in the boat ....oh boy.... Good Times
Something will destroy it by new years. I say put on 2 pair of coveralls, a poncho and a piggly wiggly paper sack over your head (eye holes cut smallish) and gitter done Saturday before the sun comes up.
A fraternity brother of mine had a great hornet story. BTW, he later became the chief of police in a suburb of Jackson for decades. As a teenager he and one of his high school buds found a hornet’s nest. They got an old suitcase and waited ‘til after dark when it had cooled down, opened the suitcase like a clamshell and then slammed it shut on the nest. Got ‘em!
Next day they took the suitcase with all the pissed off hornets 🐝 and set it out on the shoulder of the highway. They took cover nearby and waited.
After a little wait, a Cadillac with four “brothers” came by and they came to a screeching halt just past the suitcase and then backed up. When they got beside the suitcase , of the guys in the back seat opened the door and grabbed the suitcase and they took off.
Maybe fifty or a hundred yards later, the car’s tires smoked coming to a stop, all four doors flew open with the Caddy sitting in the middle of the highway and four guys running around flailing at hornets. 😳
My bud and his partner in crime wisely decided it was time to skeedaddle…..😂
NRA Life,Endowment,Patron or Benefactor since '72.
Been there and done that from a pickup window. It didn’t work out as planned. I was stung before I hit the damn thing as they’ve apparently got a perimeter defense system. Dumb hurts as it should.
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