It was from the bumble-bee nest beneath our hobo-stove.
I was mowing the yard in preparation for the reunion. I usually let it get long enough that I can see where I mowed but grass is so sparse and has been growing so slowly that it was tough to see where I had mowed and where I had not mowed.
I saw the bee that got me. It chased me down like a greyhound.
I also ran over a yellow-jacket ground-nest with the push mower but I had moved on before they got organized. Then, the next time I approached the nest I saw them flying around. That is one reason I like mowing when the sun is low in the sky, it makes swarming insects very visible.
I sprayed the foliage around the yellow-jacket nest with insecticide. Then I ran hoses to the two nests and am flooding them.
I have GREAT respect for yellow-jackets. The venom in their stinger is also a scent marker that enrages them and marks the target like a flare. Scientists deduced this by removing the rear 1/4" of deceased yellow-jacket's arse and removing the venom by soaking them in ethanol. Sprayed on a cork and placed near a yellow-jacket nest, the cork was swarmed with yellow-jackets.
Somehow, that bit of information could be useful. I am not sure how or why...but it could be useful.
Because of my respect for the yellow-jackets, I lashed the end of the hose to a 15' long pole and used the pole to position the end of the hose near the entrance of the nest.
Red Squirrels
"Hercules", Belladonna's 16 gauge, single-shot shotgun collected another red squirrel.
"Hercules" shotguns were marketed by Montgomery-Wards before WWII and were either made by Stevens or Iver Johnson.
The squirrel was cussing me out like a Karen from a limb on a Silver Maple. He was west-northwest of me and about 12 feet off the ground.
Shortly after blowing him off the limb, the shaft of sunlight lancing across the driveway lit up. It was almost as if I had shot a feather-pillow. The ounce of #7-1/2 shot knocked the hair off of him.
Cheddite hull and primer. 18.5 grains of Unique or 20 grains of Vectan AO.
The Europeans love the 16 gauge, perhaps because firearms are harder to come by than in the US and they hang onto the shotguns their grandfathers and great-grandfathers used. In the U.S., the 16 gauge is obsolete because with the range of wads and propellants there is no gap between what a 20 gauge can deliver and what a 12 gauge can deliver. ERGO, no niche for the 16 gauge.
If a 16 gauge is all that you had, you would not be ill-served (except for the difficulty in finding ammo). There are very few varmints that will shrug-off an ounce of shot hitting them at 1200 feet-per-second.
Treat bee stings and insect bites with meat tenderizer. Just wet the bite and sprinkle it on. Tenderizers contain the enzyme Papain (from the Papaya plant) which breaks down protein. Venom's are some of the most complex proteins in nature. Pain is usually gone in 15-20 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI grew up hunting with "Mom's" 16-gauge pump. When Dad died a couple years ago, little brother gathered most of the 'inheritable' items and saved it for me, as none of the other kids had really used it. I managed to find a couple boxes of birdshot, in the 4th store I went to, just to have a little ammo for it.
ReplyDeleteOur local Walmart often has #6 Federal high-brass 16 gauge on the shelf for a very reasonable price.
DeleteI wonder if the hornet pheromone still works after being injected into a paintball (or if a paintball can survive being shot after being punctured).
ReplyDeleteOr sprayed on those piles of bricks that magically appear before urban riots?
DeleteOh yeah!
DeleteClever strategy--
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onq9ixC7OEg
I got stung a couple of weeks ago. The internet recommended washing the sting with soap and warm water, and it took the pain away pretty quickly. I did still have itching that evening and the next morning.
ReplyDeleteStinking yellow jackets. A paint of fuel down the hole after dark does them in. Flooding, maybe, maybe not. The rascals break it off in you. You must recruit a sharp eyed youth to fish out the tiny piece of stinger that keeps oozing venom.
ReplyDeleteThat is pint.
ReplyDeleteRoger
Mix a few drops of the flea and tick killer that you put on your dog's neck with a small amount of hamburger (use rubber gloves) and place it in a small paper cup. In another cup put a cotton ball with the attractant from a yellow jacket trap. Set the first cup on top of the cotton ball in the second cup. Set that near your nest or your back porch. The yellow jackets come and take some of the hamburger back to the nest. Within about two days all nests within approximately 100 yards are DEAD.
ReplyDeleteI'll second the "1/2 pint - 1 full pint" of gasoline or kerosene down into the nest after dark. I tried drowning them, even added dishwashing liquid as a surfactant to break down the water's surface tension (gave two very healthy bottle squeezes into the "connection end" of a 25 ft section of hose, then connected it to the 50 ft, stuck it into the hole and turned the water on for a full minute).and that did not work as well as the gasoline.
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