# Survival > Bushcraft Medicine >  Wasps

## kyratshooter

While doing my duty as a responsible homeowner I was pressure washing the siding on the house this evening.  It has taken me three evenings to finish since it is so hot I can not start work until 7pm!

Anyhow, I was just down from the ladder and spraying a low section and hit a wasp with the pressure spray.

He lived through the experience, did not like it, and knew exactly who had hit him with 1,500psi of cold chlorinated water!

He hit me on the throat right at my beard line and I was really glad I was not up the ladder when it happened.  It felt like someone was trying to cut my throat with a dull butcher knife.

I finished up, came inside and took some Benadryl, but I am sort of swollen and lop sided in appearance at the moment.  Hurts too!

Those who know me would say they perceived no big difference.

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## hunter63

DW carries a EpiPen and I also have the Benadryl in the FAK and vehicles.....I hear ya.

If you have not had swelling before, but are now....might be a something to watch out for.

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## randyt

hate that when that happens

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## DSJohnson

I hate hornets, wasps and bees...Dang they hurt.  Ice pack and Benadryl are my friends....

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## crashdive123

I take a great deal of pleasure in killing wasps.  Does that make me a bad person?

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## Rick

I got nailed by a yellow jacket last week. First time I've been stung in years. Took about 4 days for the spot to stop hurting. We had words.

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## kyratshooter

Oh there were "words" involved.

I now look like I have a goiter on the left side and only slept a couple of hours last night.  

I took some Benadryl but I can not take any more due to the heart problems making it more risky.  Antihistamines are a no-no for my condition.

I am beginning to think the wasps in my area are more potent than any I have encountered.  I was hit last year on the hand and my arm swelled up all the way to my elbow.  

Some of those "Hunger Game" hornets.

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## madmax

I am a girlyboy with stinging insects. Hate them.  Oddly (and fortunately)  my wife slaps them down with impudence.  She sqeals and runs at the sight of a roach.  shrug...

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## hunter63

> Oh there were "words" involved.
> 
> I now look like I have a goiter on the left side and only slept a couple of hours last night.  
> 
> I took some Benadryl but I can not take any more due to the heart problems making it more risky.  Antihistamines are a no-no for my condition.
> 
> I am beginning to think the wasps in my area are more potent than any I have encountered.  I was hit last year on the hand and my arm swelled up all the way to my elbow.  
> 
> Some of those "Hunger Game" hornets.


Might want to get that checked out....seems every time I get stung, it's worse than the last time.
Just saying....

Had a boss  years ago that didn't think he was allergic....was working on an old cottage he was rehabbing....pulled open a wall and was stung several times...passed out for several hours.....hadn't had bad history with stings to that point.
Or maybe they were "Killer bees..."

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## crashdive123

I do have more of a reaction than I used to from wasp and bee stings.  I attributed it to getting older.  A couple of months ago I was driving between appointments and my fingers started itching.  Within 10 minutes my scalp was itching like I had never felt before.  Within a few more minutes the itch had spread to my entire body, with welts covering me from head to toe.  No bites or stings that I was aware of.  No pesticide exposure.  A trip to the emergency room and they were stumped as well.  I have always carried Benadryl just in case, but now have added the Prednisone and Ranitidine to my EDC.

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## natertot

Dang Kyrat, I feel for you! I haven't been stung since high school, but I have noticed that the population of all bugs in general have increased lately. Bees have been pretty bad in my yard that I took the extra effort to weed out the dandelions and clover so my kiddos wouldn't get stung. I haven't really noticed an increase in their aggressiveness. Perhaps shooting them with something that doesn't kill them is just a bad idea!

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## Wise Old Owl

I have killed thousands of Bald Face Hornets and the season is just beginning.. The calls started sometime last week after the Cicada Killer stuff panned out.  So yes Kratshooter  their eyesight and senses of carbon dioxide allow them to follow where the water is coming from.

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## LowKey

I like watching the paper wasps patrolling the garden. The travel up and down the broccoli plants and cabbage to eat the caterpillars when the pests are small enough to carry away. For the most part they are harmless.

Yellow jackets on the other hand...Had some ground dwelling yellow jackets put me in the hospital a couple years ago with bacterial infection from the stings. My left leg looked like I had elephantitis. Seem to get a nest of those suckers every year, always in a different place, and always seem to find it the hard way, stepping on it or driving over it with the lawn mower.

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## hunter63

Those wasps will reach down in a cabbage and pull out the worm......
I don't mess with them unless then mess with me.

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## kyratshooter

I arrived at a rondy a bit late in the evening a few years ago. set up my tent in the dark and went to sleep.  woke early the next morning and went to a friends camp for a morning of coffee drinking and catching up.  

About noon I went back to my tent and heard a strange buzzing sound.  Opened the tent flap to find the inside filled with ground hornets.  Closed the flap and held counsel with the group.

We waited until dark and let it cool and the hornets all went into their nest.  We moved the tent and marked the entry hole.  Next morning we poured about 5 gallons of gasoline down that hole and lit it.

There was a big THUMP and fire shot out of the ground in about a half dozen spots.

No more yellow jacket problems at that museum!

Perhaps word got around and this of payback!

Anyhow, I am still sitting here with an ice pack on my neck and a hard spot where the sting occurred about the size of a walnut still bothering me.  My whole neck is sore, but better than it was last night.

I wonder if whisky would help?  Hadn't thought of that.  Might be worth a try.

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## hunter63

Whisky always helps......might not solve anything , but you won't care as much......
I saw all the old movies, where the give the dying man a drink just before "he shoots thru, Lew"

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## Rick

I don't think wasps drink whisky but they might accept it as a piece offering. Might get stung again too so there's that.

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## WalkingTree

An interesting thing and a funny thing about me and wasps/hornets...

When I was little I had this thing about being able to, for example, walk into papa's barn full of wasps, fearless. They'd buzz up to me, right up to my face within inches. And somehow I knew they'd stop at some point and were just checking me out. But never messed with me if I didn't mess with them.

Once when playing on a swingset, I suddenly felt like a bucket of little rocks was being dumped down onto my head. I was like 'what the heck?'. When I figured out that it was a thousand wasps/hornets (?) attacking me, I flipped out. Papa laughed his arse off for a day, describing me as a crazed clown doing the wackiest dance ever as I ran to the front door away from the swingset...flailing my hands and arms and legs in impossible ways and running some kind of zig zag like I was trying to dodge a sniper, determined to dodge and swat every last assailant with all of the panic-adrenaline that I had in my body. I wish I coulda seen myself. Oddly enough, I don't remember having got any stings. Musta been a good dancer.

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## natertot

> Oddly enough, I don't remember having got any stings. Musta been a good dancer.


They were laughing too hard with your grandpa.....

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## crashdive123

Even a wasp feels sorry for special needs people.   :Innocent:

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## Rick

While you were in the house your dad disconnected the electric wire he had ran to the swing set. It's an old joke but still funny. Little kids, arms flailing, squalling. I get a chuckle just thinking about it.

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