Way back when I was about 18, I was working for an east Tx farmer after school, this day running a Ford 4000 with a mower behind. My assignment was to mow this field. I was about the middle when I felt the first sting, and by the time I looked down at the back of my hand where it happened, I was swarmed by bumble bees. I had run over a ground nest. I managed to get away with only a dozen or so stings, and when I finished that field, I'd left a small patch out there at the location of the hive. The farmer told me I would not get dinner or a shower [he provided this] nor would I get paid, until I went back out there and finished. What I did was to get the tractor and mower lined up right and hit the gas and race across that patch, somehow not flipping the machinery over. The bees were flying all over that area but none got me that time