OMom…a drive by shooting, huh? :winkgrin: :lol: :winkgrin:
OMGiH!!! Yes!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: Tooo funny, Misty!!!
:lol: Well, as long as you were thumping the bass on the stereo when you popped those hornets! :winkgrin:
FWIW…I looked up “drive by” on the urban dictionary online and the defintion given was to fart when walking by a co-worker’s cubicle. :lol: :lol: :lol:
More :lol:
Actually, the bass on my car stereo is at a -3!!! I will say this though, they were capital P, P!SSED. And, I had to wait a few days then do it again as the nest is in layers. Boy, I would have been dead if they had caught me.
I can understand why everyone hates hornets and wasps, but they actually do have their purpose in the barn. Hornets and wasps eat horse flies, as well as a myriad of other insects. 
Yellowjackets, on the other hand… those suckers are about useless.
[QUOTE=Texarkana;4225525]
I can understand why everyone hates hornets and wasps, but they actually do have their purpose in the barn. Hornets and wasps eat horse flies, as well as a myriad of other insects.
Urban legend:winkgrin:
Bats, birds and frogs do the same without the drama.
Ick. I was on a trail ride with my mare and she stepped in on of the nests… It was pretty scary. She started acting naughty and I was like WTH? And then I see one, then two, then three bees and I hauled ass out of there! They chased us, but not very far. Sadly, I had to go Right near it to get out of where I was going… Ugh. I got stung once, maybe twice. And my mare got stung three times. We were lucky. Now I’m down in AZ and I’m terrified of running into the Killer Bees!!
What we in this area call “black jackets” most certainly do eat flies. In late summer, they pick the flies right off the horses and eat them (the flies, not the horses). Unless you really harrass them, they aren’t overly agressive.
Generally speaking, they make their nests up higher than most people would be encountering by accident. I’ve had nests the size of five gallon buckets hanging in trees and in peaks of roofs.
Yellow jackets that nest in the ground and then get all huffy when you accidentally disturb them, OTOH, should be EXTERMINATED. AFAIK, they aren’t any good for anything.
Ugh, ground one are nasty!
The above ground versions aren’t any more tolerant…when my tractor was covered in nests a while back they’d send 5-6 or so out to attack the snot out of me if I walked by at a distance of 50 freaking feet. Even the swallows left them alone. You gotta be pretty darned grumpy to not be a flying meal for a barn swallow.
Brave girl! I am no fan of hornets. When I was a kid, I rescued one out of the water trough at the barn. He repayed the kindness by climbing up my sneaker and stinging me on the ankle.
So I’m wary of hornets (although I used to spend peaceful summer afternoons watching the paper wasps collecting mud from my little pond) and I’m flat out terrified of horse flies (fly/eyelid/cow tent at local fair=vendetta), but I was always the one saying “What’s the big deal? Wimp!” to people screaming and running away from bees. So it stings you? So what? You won’t die, it doesn’t hurt much, yaddda. And to all scoffing people comes payback. I was gardening a few weeks ago when a big, fat, adorable bumblebee flew up and started flitting around my hair. Which is reddish in the summer and seems to attract insects (sexy, right?:lol:) so I didn’t think anything of it. Then Mr. Cute Bumblebee starts diving at my face. Which is less normal and a lot less cute, so I start backing away and shaking my head to discourage him (I’m assuming, based on his inability to take no for an answer, that it was a him). That &#$()%&* bee would not go away. It went straight for my face repeatedly, finally managing to land directly on my nose and sting it hard. @#%&(@$%( bee. Hurt like hell. And it remained sore - like, if you touch it, it feels like there’s a needle there - for three days.
Lesson - cute insects are just as vicious and hateful and nasty as ugly insects.
Oh, and for all the insect-lovers who point out that most of them are only aggressive near their nests - could someone please send them a note reminding them that they need to build their nest in visible places? I NOW think there may be a bumblebee nest near where this happened, but undergound with the entrance concealed by ivy. &^(#%&#*^ insects…
Some of these stories are hilarious! I love the drive by one too 
I’m generally not a worrier about ‘pests’…I watch them do their thing cuz it can be pretty interesting and entertaining at times. BUT I do NOT like any form of wasp, jacketed thing, hornet, stinging creatures (actually bees and bumble bees don’t bother me too much,they’re fuzzy and cute haha).
I won’t even always kill a spider (HATE THEM) if I run across one…but I will shamefully admit that I find GREAT JOY in walking around my garden with the hose…hunting for a wasp of some kind hanging out on my flowers…soaking it with the hose disabling the flying mechanism…watching it squirm…then squishing it. hee hee sooooooooo makes me happy.
Sometimes I have spray around too…so I like to spray them THEN squish them too haha.
I think what bothers me most about them is that the ones we have kinda fly like they’re disabled…they are all over the place and come at you (maybe not intentionally) and you never know where they’re going to go…freaks me out!
I don’t mind the solid black ones though…they’re kinda purty 
Bells (European) Hornets
[QUOTE=arabhorse2;4219360]
You mean those big yellow and brown hornets? Yeah, they’re pretty scary looking!
Fortunately, they’re not very aggressive. Their actual title is European hornet, although I’ve heard people call them bell hornets. They’re not even a true hornet, more like a gigantic wasp. Still creepy, though!
I have them around my place, and have yet to find the nest. When I do, it’s buh-bye nasty critters!
I’m afraid of all stingey-bitey flying insects, and the bigger they are, the more terrified I am of them. Ick!
The bald-faced hornet is the one I’m most afraid of, though. Those things are highly aggressive, and will attack without any real provocation.[/QUOTE]
I would have to disagree as to their aggressiveness. I have had them come at me with no provocation on numerous occasions and almost killing me during the last encounter. They aren’t pleasant. The only good thing is they are cumbersome in their flight and therefore very easy to send rocketing to the ground with a tennis racket, or other implement, and then dispatching them. Their toxin is quite something. I have been stung twice. Once on the big toe and it felt like someone was trying to hammer a nail into the joint for several hours. The second time was when I found out I was then allergic to them and I almost died. Luckily for me my husband was already allergic and had an epipen since it took the ambulance 20 minutes to get to us and my throat closed almost immediately. In fact when it wore off while in the ambulance they had to hit me again with another epipen because I closed up a second time. These buggers are nothing to mess with!
[QUOTE=crazyhorses;4226915]
Ick. I was on a trail ride with my mare and she stepped in on of the nests… It was pretty scary. She started acting naughty and I was like WTH? And then I see one, then two, then three bees and I hauled ass out of there! They chased us, but not very far. Sadly, I had to go Right near it to get out of where I was going… Ugh. I got stung once, maybe twice. And my mare got stung three times. We were lucky. Now I’m down in AZ and I’m terrified of running into the Killer Bees!![/QUOTE]
I hear ya on the bees… two years ago, my friend was working her Mini in her round pen when they were attacked by killer bees. It killed the Mini outright, and the Shetland died the next day. It was awful… my friend was OK, but it took a while.
We have these red wasps here that are nasty. They keep building nests under my front steps! Didn’t have wasp spray, but Pyrhana fly spray keeps them just as dead. heh heh heh …
