Ground hornets

[Al Smith]

We got em,big ones .About an inch long and kind of yellow .

The only time I ever see them is after after I've dropped a tree or am cutting up relatively fresh cut firewood .So I did some research and found out some things .

Unlike those little bastages that sting the dickens out of you ,these aren't agressive as a normal rule .The worker hornets subside mainly on carbohydrates they get from tree sap,rotting fruit tec .This explains why they hang around wood piles .They snatch insects which are feed to the larva or the queen .She needs the protien to produce eggs and the workers don't .Just a tid bit I found interesting

 

[MasterBlaster]

I watched one drag a cicada down into its hole. It was pretty cool - he had a hella time getting it in there!

 

[Al Smith]

They were hanging around my wood pile yesterday and they darted like humming birds .They almost act like they have intelligence .

They would watch me from about 6 feet away .I kind of freaked and got out the wasp and hornet spray before I researched them .Now I've knocked down wasps with that stuff 15 feet away but those things could dart so fast and were so receptive of my movements I couldn't get close to them .

Well non agressive or not I'll curtail my splitting operations for a few days .

 

[MasterBlaster]

I don't think they'll bother you.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I like hornet threads, getting to post a pic of our bad boy, the Giant Asian Hornet. Meat eaters and very aggressive, they will decimate a honey bee hive rather quickly. They are all around this time of year, and regularly fly into the shop. They are probably at the top of the food chain in their little niche, so don't know fear. Once stung in the middle of my back is enough for me, first the slug like from a baseball bat and then incredible itching for about a week. Poison so toxic that it melts human tissue. I have to be careful about being stung again, but part of my mission in life is to kill these suckers. Not so different from big game hunting. The one that stung me, I tracked him down and hit him down with a broom, then the coup de grace. I hate them, like the hard guys in school who used to have that bad attitude about wanting to mess with you if you let them. If you upset them, they seem to remember and will come after you even if there is a delay in time between the first encounter and when they can strike. People die from the stings.

When they attack the honey bees, it's helter skelter man.
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[MasterBlaster]

Lordy!

 

[Al Smith]

These look about like that only they're smaller .They like sandy ground .

I have sandstone patios both in front of my house and in back with the cracks between the stones filled with manufactured sand .Basically pulverized limestone grit mix #703.These thing can dig holes like a dog, sand just flying .In about a minute it' s got a tunnel .

 

[woodworkingboy]

I have yet to see a nest of the big wasps, but smaller hornet ones somewhat frequently.

 

[Dave Shepard]

No ground hornets that I've seen, but the sawmill is filled with yellow jackets. I'll get stung I'm sure, but they seem to stay an inch or two away.:roll: A couple years ago they nested in the sawdust pile and they decided to sting me. I ran over the sawdust pile with a 15 ton payloader. For a while.

 

[Greenhorn]

Jay, that thing looks like a huge bee to me. Scary about the poison and aggressive nature - behavior sounds like the bumble bees we have, vendetta for humans.

Ran into a huge black wasp on the disc golf course last night, he was closing in on two inches. Really mellow, didnt seem to mind us much.

 

[Al Smith]

There is one variety of Europian honey bee that kills the scout hornets .About a zillion of them encaspsulate the hornet and collectively beat their wings to raise the temperature to about 122 degrees f .The hornet can only take 115 .The actual demise occurs because they raise the co2 level so high it asphixates the hornet .If they get the scouts the rest won't find them .

Introduction of this strain of bee in Asia has not been successfull .

I don't think from what I've read of these Ohio hornets that they prey on bees .

Where did that bee keeper go when we need him ?

 

[woodworkingboy]

Officially a hornet they say, Rob. Our bumble bees seem to like the same territory that the wasps do, or there is something special in my wood piles. I actually like the big black bumble bees, perhaps ours are mellower. They mind their own business going around collecting pollen, and I believe that they live alone. I don't even know if they have stingers, but your description sounds like they do.

 

[Burnham]

Plain old yellow jackets will build ground nests out here. They can get bad.

 

[woodworkingboy]

My elbow got huge from a small wasp sting at a tree job, three jabs. I seldom go to the doctor, but had no choice. Got a drip and it really helped.

 

[Al Smith]

Theoretically according to laws of physics a bumble bee can't fly .Evidently the bumble bee has never been told that though .

Unlike the honey bee the bumble doesn't have a barbed stinger and can nail you like Singer sewing machine .

There's also a carpenter bee which looks like his bumbling cousin and drills the nicest 3/8 inch perfectly round hole in a board .They don't fare well with a nail shoved up their behinds as punishment for trying to eat my house .

 

[MasterBlaster]

Carpenter bees, I have them.

 

[Rborist1]

Plain old yellow jackets will build ground nests out here. They can get bad.

I had a dozen or two dozen crawl up my pants a couple of years ago when I was felling a tree. Had to drop my pants and drawers to get them to stop stinging me. I am sure the people in the neighborhood wondered why a guy was running down the street half naked and hitting himself......They strung me so bad that I was dizzy and nautious.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Those sunsabitches can kill a person.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Over here they say that bees will attack the color black particularly, possibly wasps as well? Some ancient developed thing from protecting their nests against bears. When on a bicycle ride, my friend and I rested at a little park beneath an overhang, a nest above that we didn't observe. When my friend took off his hat, they suddenly swarmed after him, but pretty much left me alone. A lot of stings to his head and a similar reaction, dizzy and nauseous. We called an ambulance.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Like Burnam said... Dang yellow jackets are relentless. Once they scent you with a sting... their friends come into the fight and will follow you for about 100 feet. Probably the American cousin of what Jay has... Just smaller thank god.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Wonder what the increased radiation might do to the Giant Asian Wasp? Possibly the government isn't saying because they don't want to start a panic. Around Chernobyl there are some strange animals appearing.

 

[Paul B]

I have seen ground hornets / wasps before in the fields of a tree nursery I worked at. Fella was driving a small tractor around with a billy goat PTO mower behind it mowing the roadways, he leapt off that sumbitch and ran for his life, about 100 yards later someone jumped on the still driving tractor and stopped it. a few cans of hornet foam and a scoop from the backhoe and it was all over.

 

[Cobleskill]

I jumped off a roof, on to a pile of straw bales that had been there a while, when I was about 8. Seemed like a good way down. I didn't know yellow jackets had a nest in there. I ran up the driveway, shirtless, to the house. They gave chase and stung me 14 times. I got shaky and a bit nauseous. They have quite a wallop. Still the worst sting I have experienced.

 

[blue]

Strangely enough I had an encounter with a hornet yesterday. Sat in a truck having a drink and noticed a Hornet buzzing around the mirror, it came in the cab and I flicked it out with the paper and shut the window. Glad I did as it came straight back ans was flying into the window repeatedly. I think I picked on the local hardnut hornet, was really giving it some at the window, being the big ruff tuff treeman that I am I moved the van

Also my daughter managed to somehow disturb a wasp nest the other week and got stung 20-25 times she wasn't to happy

 

[Tucker943]

When I was learning to climb, my old school boss at the time sent me up a large apple tree to do some trimming. About 20 feet tall. he insisted no need for a climbing line, just free climb through the fella and lanyard in to make cuts. I got into a nest of yellow jackets and they worked me over as I had to slowly monkey my way back to the ground. lesson learned.