Yellow Jacket Tale ( and some suggestions)
I deal with those SOB'S many times each summer. Here are a couple hints. A dog is our "canary in the coal mine". The yellow jackets have evolved to deal with the most common threats to their nests....low slung digging animals....badgers, possums, bears, foxes etc. In Arkansas, they often use hollows in trees also...small hollows, usually in locust. I was hunting once, and stepped on a nest that collapsed down in a circle 24" across. I have never seen one that big before or since.
THEY WILL ALWAYS ATTACK BELOW 36" FIRST.I have looked down at equipment and seen them covering the tires and undercarriage, long before the first sting
You might not notice them on your pants for a minute, until they get up above your waist....BUT A DOG ROLLING ON THE GROUND, WHEN WE ARE IN THE WOODS, IS A SIGN TO BOLT. We like a blue heeler...they will stay around while you are working, and start yipping quick enough to get a good heads-up before you are in trouble.
Yellow Jackets specialize in stinging on joints...knuckles and knees are their favorites.....I have been stung sometimes, by 20 of them, and 15 of the stings are directly on my knuckles.
Okay.....the squeamish need to look away....
The toughest old Texan I knew...I will call him Morris.....was a bridge building foreman. He was an ace operator and tougher than a locust post. One day, Morris was on a D6, when nature made a very urgent announcement that he was to find a place quickly to get rid of last nights dinner.
He was preparing camping pads in a National Forest Recreation site. There were campers at nearby sites, and no porta - potties available. The latrine for the campsite would require that he walk through the whole campground to access it, and he knew he wouldn't make it. Ever the Texan....Morris just pushed a pile of dirt up, set his blade over the bare spot, idled the dozer and climbed between the blade and the front of the machine......He dropped his drawers and proceeded with the rest of the plan.....You guessed right......he had scraped the top off of a yellow jacket nest.
He described that by the time he realized what was happening, he had 100-150 of them attached to his butt. He tried to swat them off, gave up as they swarmed his face, yanked up his drawers with them inside, and headed away from the machine. By then, the pain and the dose of poison was making him light headed, and he knew he could not get back up on the dozer. He headed for his pickup and home. He called another employee, and told them to carefully go and shut the dozer off....and said that he had never been so sick before. He described the shuddering shakes, like he had Malaria, and he threw up for 12 hours. He couldn't hold any whiskey down to blunt the pain, and was not going to go to the emergency room. His wife counted 150+ stings..... about 2/3 on his rear, the rest on his face and hands.
Except for white faced hornets, the yellow jacket sting is the worst in the woods.
NEXT TALE...the dozer operator who pulled up his pants with a brown recluse spider in them and had a lemon sized rotting sore on one cheek for 3 months !!!!!
