[beb]

Ok, they're obviously not bees or wasps or yellow jackets. I would surrender to the yellow jackets outright because of their aggressiveness. -or let my former girlfriend have some fun with some gasoline.

Bees are much more of the stance "let us get the pollen and leave us alone" -which is fine with me. Paper wasps are just plain stupid and easy to corner. I don't know if they are hornets or not. I thought hornets were worse than yellow jackets.

I do know that they're incredibly big, have some yellow or orange on them. and they're guarding the riding lawnmower. They sound like tiny helecopters. I took a great whack at one of them yesterday with a shovel and knocked it twentysome feet into the barn. What floored me is that it got right back up and started flyin around again. Now they are six of them doing manuevers or some such kinda sh-t.

We get all the fun bugs in the south, anybody got any ideas -short of flamethrowers? Thanks!

[MikeM33]

I'm scared to death of bees, wasps, yellow jackets, hornets etc., etc. The walking insects never freak me out, but some crazy fool decided to give these things wings.

I'm not allergic to them or anything, but I turn into a wimpering pansy when a bee or yellow jacket is harrassing me. "Hey look at that crazy guy running all over the place, what's he doing?" Hard to tell from a distance that I'm evading some yellow jacket that flew a little too close to me.

I've only ever been stung once in my life. Bizarre experience too. I had what felt like an itch on my back so I reached back to itch and felt something lumpy under my shirt. The "Lumpy-ness" was some yellow jacket that somehow (I can't figure it out) got under my shirt. As soon as my finger made contact with it, it stung me.

Now that would have been no big deal except that I was inside a department store at the time. I made a huge scene. I totally freaked out in front of all the shoppers. Fortunately I was with my girlfriend at the time and she scraped the stinger off.

I looked down and there's this dead yellow jacket (or whatever it was) on the floor. I looked at the stinger also and it was still pulsing.

Needless to say it hurt like hell. I can only describe the feeling as if someone with long fingernails was pinching a chunk of my skin between thier nails real hard.

I still freak out when bees or the like get too close, and I'm outdoors alot.



shiver

MikeM

[beb]

Now that's a story. What I wonder is how the heck a yellow jacket got into a department store? Was it...

(This is the spot for a corny joke and some fake canned laughter)

But I know exactly how you feel, I got stung by A yellow jacket several times while mowing my front yard.

My girlfriend at the time got so mad as to pour several gallons of gasoline down into the yellow jacket's nest late that night, then lit a match and blew up half of the yard. Which was scary, but ultimately fine by me because it meant that I didn't have to mow it anymore -at least that half anyway.

I did finally find out that the gumball size insects in question are carpenter bees. The stingless males guard the females who dig interesting nests or holes in various types of dry woods.

But I'm supposed to call in the pros to deal with the problem.

I'd rather use my louieville slugger and have fun squishing these things with my sneakers. And then seal the holes with the females trapped inside with my saudering iron.