Last week we went to do a touch up on a house and as we got ready the home owner pulled us aside and had us look at this-
The picture is crap, but that's as close as I could get to the nest. It was full of pissed off yellow jackets. The home owner was going to hit it with a broom !
Yikes. I got stung numerous times taking a walk with my grandfather when I was a kid. The little evil yellow jackets often nest in the ground. We evidently disturbed them.
I saw one of them turning around and around the circumference of a circle with its stinger as the center of the circle on my ankle. Like it was drilling. The fargin' bastard was pumping me full of its venom. Between that and the several other stings I got, I became very allergic to the yellow jackets' sting.
Years later, my then young niece was playing outside my dad's house as he was mowing the grass. Another underground nest disturbed. They swarmed out like a fog. My niece was completely oblivious to the danger (over the noise of the mower she couldn't hear my warning yells). So, I ran to her to yank her out of harm's way and got stung VERY quickly on the tip of one finger. On and off. Bam. But My finger then got swollen, progressively, to the first knuckle, then the second knuckle then to the palm, pretty soon the whole hand was puffing up so bad I couldn't close my fingers and then it was puffing up my forearm.
If it hadn't stopped there, I don't think would ever have made it to a hospital before the venom shut ME down. But it stopped there, and I never did go to the ER.
That reminds me. Time to get another Epi-Pen.