BEES and other scary buzzing things

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Oh my goodness, Painter, that sounds terrifying! ;AAA; I wish you the best of luck with getting things resolved--hopefully the apiary can rescue you sometime soon!

 

I don't mind bees/wasps when they keep their distance (indeed, they can be pretty cool), but I do not like to be CLOSE to them. One of the dining halls on my campus regularly gets a few wasps hanging out in there during the spring; having to try to keep a wasp from checking out your fruit punch while also not making it mad enough to sting you is not fun at all. Once I moved from one table to another and then finally to the hallway to escape one of the bloody things--and it STILL followed me. Not fun.

 

And another time, during an outside lab, one flew up my pants. Needless to say, having a bee up my pants was not a pleasant experience. In the process of trying to GET IT THE HECK OUT I got stung and had a nice swollen lump at the bend of my leg that made walking not so fun for the next few days. :/

 

I admire those who'll go on wasp rescue missions, but I think I'll be sticking with rescuing lost ladybugs and stinkbugs and other such non-painful critters. >___<

Edited April 27, 2013 by angelicdragonpuppy

[auroshen]

And I love most insects/similar critters. Like, I'll pick up random stuff like caterpillars and praying mantises and millipedes and snails and people will be like "why do you have a bug on your arm what is wrong with you". However, I draw the line at venomous anything that is even remotely aggressive, and bloodsuckers that carry diseases. I don't mind leeches, for example- if I get one on me, I'll just pick it off and toss it back in the water where it came from. Mosquitoes and ticks are terrible, though. Do not want centipedes, do not want spiders I can't identify (or can identify and they're dangerous).

^This. I pick up most every small creature/insect I see, which freaks my female friends (and some of my male friends) out usually. I find them interesting ^^ However, I hate stinging creatures ie mosquitoes, bees, wasps, hornets, that kind of stuff. I'm just scared of them for no good reason. I despise mosquitoes, and ticks scare me a bit. Usually spiders don't rattle me, because there aren't really any super poisonous spiders in my area. Even if they are, they have poisonous back teeth which means they can't really bite things of my size.

[Shienvien]

Our neighbor had a mean hive, but ours is fairly gentle, it sounds like you have a mean hive(s).

My relatives have around 14-16 hives, depending on year. Not sure who the aggressors are, but it is quite rare that I do not get inexplicably stung when I go visiting.

 

 

@cheese456: Ticks are one of the few creatures I prefer to kill on sight... Not because I'm afraid, but because there is the chance that it would suck itself into someone later on, and there is a chance to get at least two rather nasty diseases from them over here.

[Bacon_Strips]

I think bees are bad. Anything that buzzes and flies. And has a stinger. And can kill you.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Bacon_Strips

[senyi]

I think bees are bad. Anything that buzzes and flies. And has a stinger. And can kill you. 

Isn't that the case if you're allergic...?

 

@OP: Your story kind of reminds me of what happened last year at my house. There was a hive on one of our trees My mom was freaking out and my uncle (?) came over and took the hive Apparently he wanted it for some reason

[hotbottleo'water1]

Augh. BEES. I mean I am a silly litte girl. I will kill a fly without being scared, but as soon as I see it dead, a shriek and freak out.

Yeah, people do tell me that they can't harm you if they're dead, but guts. Guts everywhere.

I am terrified of bees, and last year my friend killed a bee with a sweater. My sweater, in fact. Also I managed to swat an inch long bee and escape unscathed. I've never been stung, and I am not eager to be stung.

[Raikielia]

I hate bees/wasps(and spiders and ants and pretty much anything that bites/stings). I used to like the bees, at our other house we had a hive on the property. I used to help them out of the dog water bucket. Did that for a long time before they started stinging me. I let the drown after that.

 

I think it's gone now because my grandfather lives there now and they seriously don't like him. He got stung(a lot) whenever he walked outside. Once a whole bunch of them attacked him and chased him inside(the door was on the other side of the house).

 

All the bugs here like to bite and sting me. I can hardly go outside at all during the summer, something bites me everytime.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Raikielia

[Blear]

And I love most insects/similar critters. Like, I'll pick up random stuff like caterpillars and praying mantises and millipedes and snails and people will be like "why do you have a bug on your arm what is wrong with you".

Praying mantis?! I'm surprised you've managed to pick one up, I've only ever seen one of them and it sprung right into my face then disappeared.

 

But yeah snails are cool, I quite like having them around, I keep a few sea snails in my fish tank and when they die the fish do a pretty good job of cleaning the shell out so I generally keep it.

 

Back onto the subject of bees I do tend to avoid honeybees when I'm outside, I'm habitually forgetting the epi pen so it's not worth risking.

My own bees are pretty calm and docile, they're alright to be around as long as you don't start swatting.

[georgexu94]

I don't like wasps for sure.

[Husky51]

When ever I'm at the public swimming pool here in town, I make it a habit to play with or rescue any bees or wasps that may end up in the water.  I put my hand beneath them and slowly raise my hand so that the insect is on the back of my hand. I then walk over to the side of the pool and let the critter walk around on my hands and fingers while it is drying off enough to fly away.  Haha, one afternoon as the pool was closing for the day I saw a wasp on the cement near a puddle of water, sucking it up.  So i stopped and crouched down and slowly reached out and started stroking its back with my finger tip.  I did this for about 5 minutes with a small crowd standing around me, including lifeguards.

 

Heck, I was having fun.  I was only 65 yrs old or so that last time...  

[Nectaris]

Update.

 

We now have about 15 hives.  Mom still can't get me near them when she is working with them.  I am ok as long as I am behind them and the hives are closed.  For the most part they aren't mean, the only time they got aggressive was when mom made splits and actually had to get into the hive body(normally just getting into the honey supers doesn't really tick them off).  They were mad for over a week and would follow you everywhere. Then we had a windstorm that knocked the biggest and maddest of the hives over.  Fun.  Other than that one time though, as long as you don't stand in front of the hives they leave you alone. 

 

[purpledragonclaw]

I... love... bees!!! I love watching them pollinate, buzz around, fly near me!! I should consider working a hive!

 

Wasps and hornets are a no, though. They scare the heck out of me. They have nasty dispositions. I give bumblebees a wide berth, too, though I love to stare at them and watch them buzz around.

[Cottoncat]

There have been two occasions when there have been wasp hives somewhere in our backyard. One was attached to the bottom of a garden chair and my dad got stung while trying to get rid of it.

The other occasion was a trickier one however: there was a nest somewhere under the terrace planks and man was it hard to get rid of. It was especially inconvenient since the dog is often let to the backyard but then couldn't so she wouldn't have got stung.

[Kyath The Dream Worker]

I'm okay with honeybees.

 

But... I'm afraid of hornets and wasps. Stay away from me..

I hope no wasp and hornet build their hive near my home.

[Sazandora]

I absolutely despise wasps and hornets, but bumblebees are the cutest bugs ever. So chubby and fluffy, makes me wanna pet them.

[Nectaris]

1 hour ago, Sazandora said:

I absolutely despise wasps and hornets, but bumblebees are the cutest bugs ever. So chubby and fluffy, makes me wanna pet them. 

 

 

That reminds me, I recently went on vacation to Colorado, and there were this little, itty bitty cute bumblebees.  They were SO CUTE!  They couldn't have been much more than a half of an inch.

[Lovecats]

I do love a good bumblebee buzzing about in the back garden! All they do is mind their own business, never sting or hurt anyone or any of the plants and always help to improve everyone's mood with their sheer fuzziness! But its always heartbreaking to see them struggling about on the floor on a hot/windy day so I pop them on a flower or somewhere safe so they don't get squished,  whenever I can.

 

Mosquitoes aren't on my happy list though and when I learnt that they're in the UK, when one flew into my room at night, I was absolutely horrified. What makes things worse is that i'm going to an Ecuadorian rainforest in a couple weeks so here's hoping i'm brave and prepared enough to face the blighters after I made the absolutely atrocious decision to go for an evening walk in the woods in short sleeves. it's safe to say they loved me!

 

But I think horseflies might be the worst things on my list by far, though. I got bitten by one only for a split second on a walk a couple days ago and it still stung a good deal for a while. Their bites are known to be gruesome and very painful and which take much longer to heal than other types of insect bites so i'm glad it decided to leave me alone. I feel bad for the horsies which don't have so much luck as me, though.

[Cottoncat]

Bumblebees are definitely sweet, one summer I sneaked very close to one that was doing flower business and took a photo. It was so fuzzy and didn't seem to mind me!

 

[tine5]

I actually worked with bees for 3 years, putting my bare arms into their enclosures, and they never stung me! I've only ever been bitten by a spider once...

[Dekka]

i think bees are so lovely and pure!! however wasps and hornets look really awesome but they are EVIL VILE THINGS and i dont like them

[olympe]

Don't remind me of bees and their ilk. It seems to be extremely fashionable right now for girls (and grown women!) to run away screaming when seeing a bee, wasp, bumblebee or hornet. My daughter picked up on that, too, back when she was in primary school.

 

Fortunately, she has me for a mother. We were in my grandfather's garden, where some flowers are frequeneted by lots of bees and bumblebees, and my daughter decided to stay as far away from them as humanly possible, stating she was afraid of them. Me? Not so much. I not only stood right by the flowers, surrounded by buzzing insects, I even went on to pet a bumblebee, telling my daughter how fluffy it was. Her eyes went comically wide. "It didn't sting you?" - "Nope." Anyway, that was the beginning of her being cured of that trendy fear.

 

That being said, I've only been stung by a bee once, when I was still a little girl. I tried to slap it, and somehow managed to hit the stinger. I know better now...

[sh20000sh]

I was stung by bee when I was kid. I knew a bee was sat on my face but few minutes later, I just forgot it and was too uncomfortable, so I touched that bee. And that bee sting my face.

 

I still remember whole classroom went chaos when bee (Maybe it was hornet) came into classroom  

[Cottoncat]

Yesterday there was a wasp in the shower room so that was fun. There's a nest somewhere near the roof of this house but I didn't know that the inhabitants would want to come indoors as well.

[Moonwick]

Back when I was in primary school, they were doing work on a part of our cafeteria. There were some bees getting inside because the doors were open. Our principal came down to inform us that all people allergic to bees needed to eat in the principal's office to avoid reaction. Though it isn't my proudest moments, I ended up lying about the allergy to eat in a place away from the bees because of my intense fear of them. At least I got away with it. 

 

Also I was at a family reunion and one of my relatives took a drink of their soda, which ended up having a bee in it. Enough said.

 

I respect bees for all the work they do, I would never kill them on purpose, but they still scare me no matter what.

Edited August 19, 2018 by Tesla

[Flamekitty48]

i got stung by a wasp on the back for my 16th birthday it was bad, 7 times down my back