.... like Tony says, you think you feel something crawling on your neck or arm, and its usually nothing, but sometimes it is - like a bee or a wasp?

Today it was a wasp. Very overlooked and underated these little critters are. They can be just as deadly as nasty spiders and snakes if your allergic - some people die. It was then something popped into my head - I've never been stung. How do I know I don't need to carry a shot of adrenaline with me? How does anyone know until its too late? Is there some kind of ELISA test I can go for at the doctor?

Just a thought. You can all blame Tony

My two wasp stings, from 7 days ago, are still extremely itchy!

-ml

Did you forget to put vinegar/onion/lemon juice on them?

I had an wasp experience last summer. We were sitting in the pub garden one lunchtime, and there were lots of wasps buzzing around and generally being irritating.

So, we got to talking about the fact that none of us had ever been stung by a wasp (I've been stung by a bee before, though -- and bitten by a horsefly) when I felt an itch on the back of my leg. I went to scratch it -- big mistake. A wasp had crawled up the back of the leg of my jeans, and wasn't best pleased about being scratched like an itch.

I said "it's at this point that we find out if I'm allergic to wasp stings". Fortunately, the pharmacy was fairly close, so I walked over there and grabbed some Wasp-eze.

And, yes, it was still slightly swollen and very itchy 5 or 6 days later.

My mother was stung on the ankle and it was red and itchy for 2 YEARS.

My father was stung really badly about 15 years ago - he stuck a garden fork into the compost heap, and directly into the centre of a bees hive - it was like a scene from the Simpsons, with him shouting "aaa, aaa, get them off, get them off". Ended up getting stung about 15 times in the face - NOT pleasant.

Edit: Bees don't have nests, they have hives. Don't they? D'oh!

Oh no, I've spawned a sequel.

Remember how a said I had a squick about spiders? My other squick is about bees/wasps/hornets, but especially wasps.

And lest anyone assume that I just dislike all insects, that's not true. I can sit and play with a praying mantis or a grasshopper for hours. As a kid, I used to like ants.

As long as you didn't do number 50 on this

Bees are also rather tame, by comparison to wasps. In high school, we used to take our orange-ade and put a line of it on the bricks where we ate. After a few days, the bees started learning where the motherlode of nectar was going to be every day, and they started showing up, en masse. We used to freak all the girls out by petting them and letting them walk on us. Bees are by nature quite tame, and only attack when they feel their hive is being threatened (sticking a garden fork onto the hive would certainly qualify).

Wasps on the other hand, will sting you just for the hell of it. Unlike bees, wasps can sting over and over again, with no detrement to the wasp. Bees only sting as a last line of defence since it's going to kill them anyway. I rather equate it to people walking around with a live grenade stuck to their chest permanently. Sure, it'll stop a threat from entering your home, but you REALLY don't want to have to use it.

All that being said, if a wasp ever got caught in my car and was obviously pissed, I'm not sure I'd keep the intelligence or presence of mind not to jump out. Those things are just MEAN.

Oh, and don't ever swat a wasp in the presence of other wasps. If you break their pheremone sac, all the other wasps around go into automatic kamikazee mode. I was once cutting grass at a commercial location (years ago - I was 16) when I saw a wasps nest on the wall. Hating the little buggers, I decided to rid the world of this dire threat. There were only 3 wasps on the nest, so I figured I could take them. I went to the truck, got a long pair of needlenosed pliars, and sneaked up to the nest. I sloooowly reached up with the pliars and squished one on the edge, so as not to alert the other two that their guard was down. Before I could pull my hand back, I was stung 6 times on the hand that was holding the pliars. Right on the freaking fingers. Now when I want to kill a nest of wasps, I usually use hairspray and a lighter. Their wings are so thin, they pretty much melt instantly, and the wasps all fall to the ground, ready to be stomped with impunity. I also hear that carboureator (sp?) cleaning fluid works wonders too. It doesn't even have to be lit. On the other hand, I have on several occasions seen a friend of mine take a tissue, walk up to the wasps nest, and crush the whole nest at once. I still think he's f-ing nuts though. I mean, even if it CAN be done, how do you ever figure that out? You have to try it at least ONCE without knowing it can really be done.

All that being said, if a wasp ever got caught in my car and was obviously pissed, I'm not sure I'd keep the intelligence or presence of mind not to jump out

So guess how fun it was to discover one crawling around inside my motorcycle helmet while I was doing 80 MPH on the highway...

Oh my goodness.... I'd be buying a new helmet. And new pants, likely.

Its a wonder I've never been stung. A few years back (when I was little. Well... 12) myself and my friends thought it would be a really good idea to collect wasps in jars and torment them.

Then someone had the better idea of building a huge Lego fort out of the big clear space station bits and packing it full of wasps. So its the middle of summer and we have a big collection of angry wasps in their mini-greenhouse. Someone is nominated to look after the wasps at night (so that they can't escape) - my friends younger brother gets the task.

Now I wasn't there at the time, but apparently at about 3am, their cat knocks the Lego fort off the desk and releases about 50 pissed-off waps. His screams of terror could be heard in the next 2 houses.

Oh those were the days.

And, yes, it was still slightly swollen and very itchy 5 or 6 days later.

I once sat on a hornet - very painful, and swolen area aroud the sting on the back of my leg was the size of a tea saucer and lasted for two months; no adverse reaction otherwise, though, and I didn't even take any antihistaminics.

That reminds me of Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory (not that I am comparing your gang to the hero there...)

Living in deepest Hampshire I think I've been bitten and stung by everything out here, so I know I'm not allergic to anything. Wasps are bad on two levels - as well as being mean bastards they are not particular about where they nest. We've had three nests in the roof of our house, and many in rabbit holes in the surrounding fields. They can be dispatched of at night with a bottle of creosote, but in the house you need somebody to come out to puff it with a pesticide. When we removed one from the main roof filled several large plastic bags - bit of a shame as they are a work of art to look at.

That said, for several years my uncle kept several hives of bees at his house on the outskirts of Basingstoke and was stung many times, but one time he was stung he got a severe allergic reaction and was taken to hospital. What didn't help was they gave him ten times too much adrenalin and his heart stopped! He fully recovered but had to give the bees away. Shame really, as it was nice to have as much honey as you can eat available

Gareth

When I was ten or so, my step-father moved in and brought some bees with him, three hives worth. I'm allergic to bees and fortunately didn't have to take the hives apart, I got the fun job of spinning out the honey. mmm, sweeet. One day, when I was fourteen or something, a bee came in with the comb and finally decided to sting me on the upper eyelid. I'm allergic to stings and despite the drugs got an enourmous lump on my head. I really looked like the elephant man's younger brother. I stayed inside for most of that week but went out to see some friends.
I had that awkward moment of them trying not to laugh and me looking foolish as they stared at this lump on my head.
After a few days the swelling actually was flowing from my forehead, down the bridge of my nose and under my eyes.
Not fun

They can be dispatched at night with a bottle of creosote

My dad, who I hadn't hitherto thought of as a pyromaniac, once dispatched a wasps' nest in our garden wall with extreme prejudice -- using petrol. He poured it in through the topmost wasp-hole he could, stood well back, and threw a match at it. How he managed not to blow the wall to pieces I don't know, but the result was flames licking from every wasphole -- flames which convective draught through the nest turned into Bunsen intensity, in a sort of Cryptonomicon sort of a way. You could almost see the looks of surprise on the wasps' faces as their attack flights from the nest turned into neatly ballistic parabolas as their wings burned off.

Peter

Hehehe, coool.

This can work well if there is a reasonable distance from the wasp nest to where you are having lunch. Squish one, and leave it. When the next one comes to investigate, squish it too. A few years back we managed to rid the world of over 40 wasps, thus making a real dent in their population

Admittedly, one of the guys was doing it by grabbing a wasp in his hand and squashing it before it could sting him. Worked quite well for a while - now he hasn't got the nerve to do it any more.