Bell Hornet Paradise
Here, taken from about three feet away with my new S5-IS Canon digital camera, with about 97 percent of its capabilities still unexplored by me, is a shot of five bell hornets.
They seem to be collecting something at the very bottom of a large oak tree, no more than 10 inches from the path that I've worn from the house to my workshop. Probably they've taking sap that is oozing a drop at a time from the tree, but I don't know for sure. I have felt no strong urge to look closer.
I walk right by these guys several times a day, when I'm not thinking. Once in a while one of them will take the opportunity to warn the trudging two-legged Big Ugly for six or seven feet. But usually they pay me no attention. They did the same thing at the same spot last year.
I wish I knew where their nest was. I'm sure it's a big one, but it must not be anywhere where I or my wife are likely to brush. Last year I found a congregation of several hundred of them in plain sight at eye level in the crack of a huge, double-trunked maple across the creek, where I had cut wood not long before. I didn't seriously consider doing anything except letting them be, and this year they are somewhere else, hopefully in another galaxy -- a fate that I try to inflict on threats of all kinds, and using the same method.
Bell hornets are the largest and most fearsome of the many stinging insects that live around here. I know this because at one time or another I've been hit by representatives of them all, and the bell hornet is the winner by far. Their first sting came when, using a small piece of paper towel, as was my practice with their smaller cousins, I tried to pinch up one that had invited itself into the house. I thought it was a "good news bee," a harmless insect similar in appearance to a bell hornet but whose thing is to suddenly show up a few feet away with a loud, insistent buzzing, and it will keep hovering that way for a long time, as if demanding to know, "What's going on here, turkeys?" I didn't expect to be stung at all, so I was astounded.
The pain feels as if it's a little worse than that of the runners-up, yellowjackets. But the main thing is that the effects of the bell hornet's injections last so much longer, for several days. That will never appear in anyone's manual of happiness.
They seem to be collecting something at the very bottom of a large oak tree, no more than 10 inches from the path that I've worn from the house to my workshop. Probably they've taking sap that is oozing a drop at a time from the tree, but I don't know for sure. I have felt no strong urge to look closer.
I walk right by these guys several times a day, when I'm not thinking. Once in a while one of them will take the opportunity to warn the trudging two-legged Big Ugly for six or seven feet. But usually they pay me no attention. They did the same thing at the same spot last year.
I wish I knew where their nest was. I'm sure it's a big one, but it must not be anywhere where I or my wife are likely to brush. Last year I found a congregation of several hundred of them in plain sight at eye level in the crack of a huge, double-trunked maple across the creek, where I had cut wood not long before. I didn't seriously consider doing anything except letting them be, and this year they are somewhere else, hopefully in another galaxy -- a fate that I try to inflict on threats of all kinds, and using the same method.
Bell hornets are the largest and most fearsome of the many stinging insects that live around here. I know this because at one time or another I've been hit by representatives of them all, and the bell hornet is the winner by far. Their first sting came when, using a small piece of paper towel, as was my practice with their smaller cousins, I tried to pinch up one that had invited itself into the house. I thought it was a "good news bee," a harmless insect similar in appearance to a bell hornet but whose thing is to suddenly show up a few feet away with a loud, insistent buzzing, and it will keep hovering that way for a long time, as if demanding to know, "What's going on here, turkeys?" I didn't expect to be stung at all, so I was astounded.
The pain feels as if it's a little worse than that of the runners-up, yellowjackets. But the main thing is that the effects of the bell hornet's injections last so much longer, for several days. That will never appear in anyone's manual of happiness.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 1:52 PM
1 Comments:
I got stung yesterday by one. I got stung three times so the pain is even worse than just one sting. And the pain is even worse when you get stung on one of the weakest parts of your body, your tush. ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ thanks for the info on the side-effects though!
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