something to think about when dropping a tree....

[ScotO]

those would be bald-faced aka white assed hornets. they suck.

we were out scouting archery hunting spots several years back, up a good ways back in the laurel on top of the mountain.....
it was a cool, September morning, cool enough that the bugs were sluggish. Well we were following a deer trail thorugh the laurel, I was in the lead, my brother was behind me, and my brother's buddy was last in line. Never saw that HUGE bald face hornet nest that was knee-high.....by the time me and my brother got past it, the bees were out and stinging his buddy.....

I never EVER thought that I could run that fast in thick laurel......but once you get on 'plane' up on top of the laurel, you can really fly!!

 

[smokinj]

I have drop enough hollow tree that will make you sick...Guess thats why I am jumpy on or off the saw. But at this point of the game I could careless if I ever fell another one.

 

[Bret Chase]

I hate those stupid bugs.... I hear there are worse stings... apparently there is this wasp in Japan that is larger than a hummingbird.... and it's sting supposedly is like being shot, stabbed, and lit on fire all at the same time.....

 

[ScotO]

Watched a special on them on Nat Geo one night. Wow, hope we never have them bastiges around here.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet

(broken image removed)

 

[Bret Chase]

Watched a special on them on Nat Geo one night. Wow, hope we never have them bastiges around here.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet

(broken image removed)

my god.... I'd have to keep my shotgun on my back in the woods.....

 

[fabsroman]

Wow..
I cant believe you actually got a picture of those things!! I felt sick when I tapped on your photo. Thats what came after me. I was out of my mind with fear. I was attacked earlier in the week had killed the hornets and had identified them. The articles on the internet said to leave the hives if they are not close to populated areas. Screw that.
I feel bad about the dog. Ive never really heard of honeybees being that aggressive but I know they cross with the African bees. I have honeybees here. I used to have 70 hives but Im down.
They DO migrate to trees. They overwinter and stay very alive.
But it is a good reason to be wary and really look over what you are cutting.
I just saw a video on youtube on another tree care forum of a guy cutting down a huge cottonwood. The tree was loaded with wasps of some sort.

Yeah, I went out there on Saturday and hit the hive with some wasp killer foam. Took the camera and telephoto lens out with me so I could take a picture of them and figure out what they were. Like I said, I have never been stung by anything that hurt that bad, and I have been stung by plenty of bees. The stings were warm the next day and swollen and they itched for about a week. Fastest I can remember running. Took off running as soon as I heard the buzz, but they got me anyway.The first sting was in my hand, but I was actually wearing gloves so it wasn't too terrible. The garage was right behind me along with the door to the house. Cannot imagine how bad it might have been if I was in the middle of a field. After I sprayed it down, I taped a propane torch to a stick and lit it on fire. Just cannot imagine how bad it could have been if one of the kids got into that. They were 5 and 3 years old at the time this happened.

 

[Bret Chase]

Yeah... I like the fire part as a **** you to the hive....

 

[fabsroman]

my god.... I'd have to keep my shotgun on my back in the woods.....

Yeah, we have something in Maryland called the European Hornet. The thing grows to about 2 inches and eats yellow jackets. My dad hit a hive of them while he was living in Italy and got stung so many times he almost died. We used to shoot them with the pellet gun in the backyard of the first house we lived in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_hornet

 

[jdp1152]

Was fishing on a three acre farm pond in a john boat down in Georgia. There was a pipe spillway with a metal grate on at the deeper end near the tree line. We dropped our cinder block anchor on the spillway not realizing we got the rope tangled. Long story short, the back of the drifted into the tree line stirring up a hornets nest. My cousin and I were hit very hard with multiple stings before jumping out of the boat and getting under water. My brother and other cousin were pretty far away and one of them got stung as well. Most of the stings were on my torso, but when I swam over to get the boat after the fury seemed to have died down, couldn't get the anchor untangled which gave one last sneak attack for one pissed off hornet. Right in my temple. Just dropped me with the pain. My cousin cut the rope and got us back to the dock where the pain in my head had me tossing my cookies. Damn six ft snake swam a foot away from my face as I was heaving

 

[DanCorcoran]

Was fishing on a three acre farm pond in a john boat down in Georgia. There was a pipe spillway with a metal grate on at the deeper end near the tree line. We dropped our cinder block anchor on the spillway not realizing we got the rope tangled. Long story short, the back of the drifted into the tree line stirring up a hornets nest. My cousin and I were hit very hard with multiple stings before jumping out of the boat and getting under water. My brother and other cousin were pretty far away and one of them got stung as well. Most of the stings were on my torso, but when I swam over to get the boat after the fury seemed to have died down, couldn't get the anchor untangled which gave one last sneak attack for one pissed off hornet. Right in my temple. Just dropped me with the pain. My cousin cut the rope and got us back to the dock where the pain in my head had me tossing my cookies. Damn six ft snake swam a foot away from my face as I was heaving

Who said that a bad day fishing beats a good day at work?

 

[Bspring]

Was fishing on a three acre farm pond in a john boat down in Georgia. There was a pipe spillway with a metal grate on at the deeper end near the tree line. We dropped our cinder block anchor on the spillway not realizing we got the rope tangled. Long story short, the back of the drifted into the tree line stirring up a hornets nest. My cousin and I were hit very hard with multiple stings before jumping out of the boat and getting under water. My brother and other cousin were pretty far away and one of them got stung as well. Most of the stings were on my torso, but when I swam over to get the boat after the fury seemed to have died down, couldn't get the anchor untangled which gave one last sneak attack for one pissed off hornet. Right in my temple. Just dropped me with the pain. My cousin cut the rope and got us back to the dock where the pain in my head had me tossing my cookies. Damn six ft snake swam a foot away from my face as I was heaving

Good story but when I got to the snake part I thought you were going to tell us you got snake bit from the hornet sting. That would have been a very bad day!

 

[jdp1152]

Fortunately the only time I've been bitten by a snake was a small garter snake that couldn't even break my skin and got tired of my teenage self trying to play with it. No idea what kind of snake it was that day. The area was prone to cottonmouths and copperheads, but pretty sure it was likely just a harmless water snake. Regardless, I prefer not have any of them a few feet from my face, woozy or not. One good thing about living up north now....poisonous snakes are incredibly rare to see.....but the bass are a lot smaller.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Just one more reason why I always cut my firewood in the Fall after it has cooled down.
Winter there is too much snow, Spring is often mucky and the woods are full of ticks, Summer and early Fall is generally too hot, and that's when the insects are active. Late Fall is just right.

 

[nate379]

I'd scream like a 6 year old girl!

Found out I'm allergic to them this summer. Was helping my brother cut his firewood in Maine. Stuck my boot on the bumper of his plow truck to tie the laces and a big old hornet/wasp came buzzing out of the tailgate latch and got me in the hand.

Hand swelled up as did my throat and tongue!

I think we used a whole can of gas on them suckers!

Watched a special on them on Nat Geo one night. Wow, hope we never have them bastiges around here.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet

(broken image removed)

 

[Paulywalnut]

Here are the wasps that got me last year. 3 stings and one was still biting my ankle after I got inside. Stung on the left hand, left shoulder, and left ankle. That was July, Thursday the 12th. I was just getting home from Court after losing an $80,000 case. Got home from Court and noticed a dead branch in the azalea bush so I decided to crack it off. Knew I was in trouble when I heard the buzzing sound. Cannot remember the last time I ran that fast.

The next day, Friday the 13th, UPS dropped off my A-coil and it was the wrong size. Then, my dog ran off and the neighbor two doors up called animal control. Ran over another neighbor's mailbox looking for the dog because I was late for a client meeting. Was 30 minutes late meeting with the client. The meeting did not go well, then spent 3 hours in traffic getting home.

Spent Saturday putting everything back in place. Got rid of the wasp nest. Got the dog from the pound and gave them a piece of my mind regarding his condition. Then worked on the chimney to the furnace. Much better day.

Those wasps were worse than any yellow jacket sting I ever received. Just happy the kids weren't out there with me or that they were not playing in those bushes that were right next to the cars. Going to cut those bushes out after tax season. and plant grass.

With that kind of day it could only get better the next day.

 

[Bret Chase]

Here are the wasps that got me last year. 3 stings and one was still biting my ankle after I got inside. Stung on the left hand, left shoulder, and left ankle. That was July, Thursday the 12th. I was just getting home from Court after losing an $80,000 case. Got home from Court and noticed a dead branch in the azalea bush so I decided to crack it off. Knew I was in trouble when I heard the buzzing sound. Cannot remember the last time I ran that fast.

The next day, Friday the 13th, UPS dropped off my A-coil and it was the wrong size. Then, my dog ran off and the neighbor two doors up called animal control. Ran over another neighbor's mailbox looking for the dog because I was late for a client meeting. Was 30 minutes late meeting with the client. The meeting did not go well, then spent 3 hours in traffic getting home.

Spent Saturday putting everything back in place. Got rid of the wasp nest. Got the dog from the pound and gave them a piece of my mind regarding his condition. Then worked on the chimney to the furnace. Much better day.

Those wasps were worse than any yellow jacket sting I ever received. Just happy the kids weren't out there with me or that they were not playing in those bushes that were right next to the cars. Going to cut those bushes out after tax season. and plant grass.

I had one of those days today...... started off in the crapper and went downhill from there...

 

[basod]

If you haven't tried it before spit in your palm and mix up some tobacco, some chew or out of the end of a cig.
Put some of the paste on the sting. It'll stop the pain within a couple minutes.

 

[homebrewz]

Lots of suggestions to dump boiling water in ground bee nests. Try soapy water. Insects "breathe" through their abdomen. Covering them with soapy water suffocates them. We stirred up a ground bee nest last summer brush hogging an area which hadn't been done in many years. A couple applications of soapy water did the trick.

 

[katwillny]

that's awful for the dog. I remember as a kid my grandfather had close to 100 crates of honey bees and being the mischievous kids that we were we used to poke the hives with long sticks to try to get fresh honey. Meanwhile there were hundreds of gallons of honey inside the shed where grandpa used to store the honey prior to taking it to the market to sell it. He once found us messing with the hives and the stinging of the butt whipping was much worse than getting stung by bees.

 

[jdp1152]

If you haven't tried it before spit in your palm and mix up some tobacco, some chew or out of the end of a cig.
Put some of the paste on the sting. It'll stop the pain within a couple minutes.

Cig or cigar work best. You want it to dry pretty quick so it draws out the poison as well as having the nicotine acting as an analgesic. Dip/Chew are very moist, but can work in a pinch. If southern folklore is to be believed, a freshly cut onion will also sooth a sting. Personally, I've never found much comfort in any of the above remedies, but I'm sure my anger at the yellow jackets/wasps/hornets at the time might skew my opinion on marginal results.

 

[fabsroman]

Cig or cigar work best. You want it to dry pretty quick so it draws out the poison as well as having the nicotine acting as an analgesic. Dip/Chew are very moist, but can work in a pinch. If southern folklore is to be believed, a freshly cut onion will also sooth a sting. Personally, I've never found much comfort in any of the above remedies, but I'm sure my anger at the yellow jackets/wasps/hornets at the time might skew my opinion on marginal results.

Yeah, we don't have a single tobacco product in the house, so I might have to try the onion trick. Hope I never have a next time to warrant such a try. Only time I saw a tobacco product being used for "medicinal" purposes is when my uncle burned a leach off of my foot. That is what I got for walking around in the creek without shoes. Problem is, he died 2 months after my wedding almost 8 years ago from lung cancer.

 

[nate379]

I was wondering as well. I could have swore AOL went T.U. like 10 years ago!

What really amazes me is that you were using AOL! Thought they were bout dead by now.