Hard hat/crash helmet for tractoring? Anyone?

[bloody_peasant]

I only put down the face shield down once after running over a hornets' nest at a very low ground speed on a bad slope. Luckily I did not get stung! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif The brush hog chopped up a lot of those little #%^&**#@'s. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif What I did later at night was not exactly an organic practice /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif, but I have not had a problem with that underground hive since.

Ok, I've gotta ask, what kind of hornet makes an underground nest? All hornets I'm aware of make a paper nest up in something like a tree or bush (or a christmas tree that you happen to be pruning ).

Sure these weren't yellow jackets? I got stung 32 times once by those little #%@!% They typically make nests underground.

 

[Maine_Polack]

I too wore a forestry hardhat with face shield and ear protection for a while. Then I built a canopy, and some protection.

Picture shows the air conditioner I installed.

P.S. I've run into many a ground bee nest. Kinda gets your attention. I was once mowing hay and got stung close to my eye. My immediate reaction was to sort of slap my face with my hand. It knocked my glasses off. Quite blind, was I. Trying not to step on them while looking for them on my hands and knees. When I did find them one lens was missing. It took a while to find that sucker.

I knew a fella that found a ground nest in his yard. He rigged up a vaccuum cleaner right at the hole, and turned it on around dusk. I think he sucked the majority of them up.

 

[Maine_Polack]

Sorry. Here is the pic. of my Air Conditioner.

 

[Maine_Polack]

One more time...

 

[Maine_Polack]

Well reducing the pic in size has kinda hid my fan. The silver circle is the center of it. Works well.

 

[bbse]

I do not know about NC but here in TN we have ground Hornets. Couple of years back I had a nest in my front yard. Every time I went near it on of those big black and yellow hornets would chase me in the house. After a couple of times I found the nest, waited till dark and took care of it. Messed up the yard for awhile but I had to do some landscaping anyways so it is fine now. This year I have seen some more But I have not found the nest and I have not been attacked...YET!!.

 

[bloody_peasant]

I wonder if those are really yellow jackets?

Everything I have ever read or heard of says yellow jackets are the only wasp related species that builds underground nests (except for some solitary species). There is one that is called the baldfaced hornet, but it is actually a yellow jacket.
http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/urban/occas/hornet_yellowjacket.htm

From this site, it describes only yellow jackets as building their nests underground.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG3732.html

I've always defined yellow jackets as being mostly black & yellow striped and with nests normally underground, although they can be above ground. Hornets I always defined as having the big paper nests above ground and typically were mostly black.

I seemed to have found the one called a "ground hornet" on this site, a long list of pics >:-D (not for the faint of heart) of the many differrent species. The very bottom one is listed as a "ground hornet", but also as a yellow jacket (The long yellow jacket) when you click on the pic.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/35661

I'm probably splitting hairs here though, as yellow jacket and hornet are common names and their defintions will vary from individual to individual with no consistency. Heck hornets and yellow jackets are from the same genus and are are so very closely related, all in the wasp family as well, that there is no consistent defining characteristic between them. I guess the real lesson from all of this is that common names are not very precise and what you may call a hornet another may call a yellow jacket

 

[bloody_peasant]

Wasps and all of their nasty relatives seem to have an instinct to go for the eyes. I've been stung around my eye at least 5 or 6 times. Each time the wasp (usually a yellow jacket) lands on my eye, I blink automatically, pinch its legs with my eye lid, then get stung right around the eye. Never been stung in the eye directly though yet

I had one huge one sting me there 3 or 4 times repeatedly before I could beat him down with my glove. Then he proceeded to chase me all the way to the house . My eye swelled shut within an hour

When we found an underground nest, we used to wait til late evening and use a long PVC pipe to pour gas into the hole, then threw a match and ran.

The biggest and baddest wasp critter I have ever been hit by was over 2" long. We had set out some old tires in our field to use to start a brush pile fire. They had been out there for a few days and I came by picked one up to take it to the brush pile, when under my glove, I feel intense pain. I pulled my glove off and saw a YJ that was nearly as big as the back of my hand. It literally looked like it spread from my knuckle to my wrist joint and it was repeatedly stinging me. It took 5 or 6 shots with my glove to get it off my hand before I could run away.

This was all in far eastern KY, so probably not very different than TN. However here in NC, I've yet to see any ground nested wasps (yellow jackets ), but plenty of paper nests wasps.

 

[bbse]

bloody_peasant.."The biggest and baddest wasp critter I have ever been hit by was over 2" long."

I did not get stung but I have been chased around by one of the super sized YJ. I have been in middle TN all my life and I have never seen one of these before. In the last five years I have seen several. I was playing golf last year near Clarksville TN, got on the green and went to pull the flag. This giant YJ came out of the cup, it was at least 2"+ in size, and commence to chase me around that green . I don't know what kind of idiot I looked like running around on a putting green waving a flagstick around, trying to hit a giant wasp . I saw another late last year in my front yard and was wise enough to leave it alone.

 

[slaveToHorses]

Pretty ironic that I would see this thread this morning.
Over the weekend, I got BOTH, stung in the butt cheek by a ground hornet AND hit on the head by a dead branch!!!

First the branch. I was pulling out small trees with the BH. Earlier I was cutting and bucking trees and had my chaps and forrestry hardhat/face screen on. It was hot so as soon as I was back to just tractor work I swapped it out for earphones and a baseball cap. I was off the tractor setting the chain for a new tree and bang got hit right on the head by a branch that fell off a different tree. The wind snapped it off, not me or the tractor. It really hurt. I got my hard hat back on fast. Darn maples and alders are so brittle.

Before then, when I was bucking trees I was dumping the smaller banches in a chipping pile when I realized it was on a ground nest. I was being a good neighbor and moving the branches away from the nest when I got nice sharp pinch in the ass. So much for loose pants. I think I will shoot some wasp spray down it some evening soon.

Around here I get underground yellow jackets and bumble bees and sometimes other misc. bees. The YJ's get immediate attention, the rest I usually just leave alone.