Fast Eddy (Guest) on 05/05/2008 5:03 pm

The underground bee, mortal enemy of the Adirondack redneck.

So, what became of him? "Dennis was less fortunate" leaves quite a bit to the imagination. Did the bees sell him into white slavery? i must know.

Poop on a Stick (Guest) on 05/05/2008 5:10 pm

OUCH! Ya know, Max, what's really fun is discovering the bastards only after you run over their underground hive while mowing the lawn shirtless with a push mower. They're not slow; and if you stumble and fall... well, don't do that. It wouldn't be good.

Thanks for the great story.

BurntToShreds on 05/05/2008 5:29 pm

Flaming bees. My God.

Tayeloquin on 05/05/2008 5:38 pm

owie!

-RoG- on 05/05/2008 5:46 pm

Few mental images are more horrific than a swarm of fiery angry flaming bees (er, yellow jackets) headed straight for you. I imagine it'd feel like getting stung by bees filled with thermite in their stingers.

Jon from Alabama… (Guest) on 05/05/2008 6:01 pm

I just wanted to contribute a piece of useful information concerning Yellow Jackets. Yes, they are indeed much worse than bees, but actually your old friend's idea with gasoline wasn't completely wrong. The trick is not to use actually set it on fire. You see, the gasoline kills them quite efficiently on its own without the fire, and much less dangerously! (How disappointing for the pyromaniacs among us.) However, going in during the daytime is also a bad idea. If you go in after dark, they are all sleeping! Which also means you'll get the whole nest. Note: gasoline, kerosene, etc also works to kill fire-ants. Fire-ants, yellow jackets... are not friendly to those of us with lawnmowers, indeed.

Protoclown on 05/05/2008 6:02 pm

Thank you for this bright spot in my day.

I am crying tears of joy, and I am putting down the gun

Max Burbank on 05/05/2008 6:27 pm

Dennis actually ran faster than I was aware most people could run and only got stung/burned a few times. I think it was hard for the Yellow jackets to concentrate on what they were doing.

Ronin S on 05/05/2008 6:42 pm

See, what you should do is get an aerosol can and lighter, to make a flamethrower that can shoot deep into the hole for a long time.

This reminds me of SomethingAwful's bee thread.

Dungeonbrownies on 05/05/2008 6:43 pm

most people fear bees. wasps are worse. Getting chased is awful. but just imagining a swarm of flaming wasps is an amazing image.

Colonel Flagg on 05/05/2008 8:19 pm

I once stepped on a nest of yellowjackets when I was about 8 or nine years of age. I must have been stung about 30 or 40 times, which seemed like hundreds to me at the time. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant experience.

Thank you for forcing this repressed memory back into sharp focus. I think I'll go get a machete and start looking for hookers.

Silver on 05/05/2008 10:10 pm

I've never been stinged in my life by any kind of flying yellow bastard. Although I think that what I don't get by them I get by nasty, blood-sucking mosquitoes. I don't really know what makes them target me as their favorite meal every single time I go to the country with my family. I always end up being bullet-ridden by their nasty ambushes.

-RoG- on 05/05/2008 11:59 pm

Here's another bee related story I just had to share:

I had this super-butch health class teacher back in high school. Because the school was overcrowded, they had additional trailers set out back where classes could be held... which was about as close to living in Hell as one could get if you got stuck in there during the summer, but that's another story altogether.

Anyway, one day a bee flew into the sweltering hell trailer classroom and everybody started freaking out about it. Our teacher, showing absolutely no trepidation whatsover, calmly walked over to the bee and grabbed it right out of the air with her fist and shaked it vigorously as she made her way to the front door. She opened the door and then chucked the bee outside and then continued giving us our class notes as if nothing had even happened at all.

At the time, I honestly thought that was one of the toughest things I had ever seen and was convinced that woman could kill me without even breaking a sweat if she wanted to.

Jaimas on 05/06/2008 12:22 am

Times like this remind me of when I was working custodial for Bellerose School District, and a member of the staff, a chubby man by the name of "Jimbo," was tasked with eliminating a nest of Velvet Ants.

For the unaware, Velvet Ants are a furry, orange, bee-like insect that is actually a member of the wasp family. Most nest in the ground, but if they can find a bored-out piece of wood to nest in, they will go for it. Their name comes from the fact that they have furry bodies like bees, but are black otherwise.

The nest in question was an extensive network of tunnels built into the ground in the garden. For reasons uncertain, Jimbo assumed the tool for the job was none other than a hose.

I heard a scream, and I looked to see Jimbo, a heavy-set man weighing about 300 Pounds, running full-tilt away from something, followed by a buzzing sound so loud I could hear it from where I was, down at the other end of the soccer field. A cloud of these 2-3" wasps was in hot pursuit of the man, who ran inside. He got stung several times, but the people near the entrance got it worse - with their quarry having escaped, they vented their fury on some unsuspecting woman who was lucky to get to her car in one piece.

greenimp on 05/06/2008 2:59 am

at first i just read "underground bees" and i had an image of a bunch of bees running around in the sewer, wearing headbands, smoking illicit substances and making plans to overthrow "the establishment"

Katy (Guest) on 05/06/2008 3:22 am

I think I'm a terrible person when I saw but Dennis was less fortunate I automatically thought of Eddie Izzard and "HELP! I'm COVERED IN BEES!"

But knowing this place, I'm probably no worse than some others around here.

Mac Brookman on 05/06/2008 5:07 am

Ha, an old boss of mine once had a wasp problem in house, the kitchen ceiling seemed dandy to them so they built a nest there, causing quite a "danger zone" around the back of his house. So he shut the hole out back, carefully drilled a hole in the ceiling, hooked up the hose from the stove and gassed them.

Only when he removed the hose again he forgot to douse his cigarette.

Silver on 05/06/2008 5:23 am

-RoG-, your story actually sounds tough... If memory serves me right, you are supposed to be quite well informed about bugs and stuff, don't you? I remember an old article in which you mentioned your passion for insects at an early age. Hah, I wonder if you would actually BEE the one grabbing the bee and proving yourself to the rest of the trai... I beg you pardon, classroom.

qroberts (Guest) on 05/06/2008 7:35 am

In case anyone was wondering whether the flaming hornet attack is embellished I can assure you that it is not.

I once witnessed a friend's father do exactly the same thing to a nest of those cursed chud hornets and I will be damned if it wasn't the most terrified I've ever been in my life!

It seemed utterly impossible how far and accurately they were able to fly while on fire. I knew from experience that heat kills ants in a hurry but Jebus Crackers ground hornets have evil powers!

To top off the redneck-ness of the experience, it was during a cookout and the kid's dad was wearing a beater and drinking a 24oz bud diesel in a cozie.

I ran off and didn't come back for a good half hour and half the backyard was smoldering.

Krackor (Guest) on 05/06/2008 9:46 am

A half hour and a half, qroberts? :P

Anyway...damn! For some reason I'm actually tempted to try this, just to see some flaming bee fury!

qroberts (Guest) on 05/06/2008 10:29 am

Ran away for half an hour....

Half backyard smoldering when came back(those dry Buffalo summmers).

Unfortunate choice of vocab and word location I spose.

Although, I might start saying that "Well I figure I'll be back in a half hour and a half"

"You mean an hour"

"Yeah.... a-hole"

:)

KillerMcGee on 05/06/2008 12:36 pm

i stepped on a bees nest as a kid, got stung about 30 times.

another time a wasp was stuck in my sheets when i went to bed, i fell asleep and had this dream my sister was throwing basketballs at my leg. when i woke up i had been stung 4 times.

-RoG- on 05/06/2008 1:35 pm

Silver, yeppers, you are correcto. While most kids wanted to be an astronaut or president or whatever, I always wanted to be an entomologist. I had tons of books about bugs, with a particular interest in spiders. I used to catch black widow spiders all the time... amazingly I was never stung and/or killed. I also spent a lot of time in the woods catching reptiles when I was a kid too. Snakes 'n lizards were my bread 'n butter.

As for the grabbing the bee out of mid-air trick, I did try it once years later and it actually worked. Spiffy!

SunnyD on 05/06/2008 9:53 pm

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I lived in these apartments, and I was out playing behind them, in that strip of field next to the golf course that was covered in flowers. Promptly after picking a few, I heard a strange buzzing, only to look up and see the largest fattest bumblebee ever in my life. To my child eyes this thing was the size of a fist and it stormed after me. I ran faster as my legs could carry, with the bee in hot pursuit, less then a foot away the entire time before I could leap into the safety of my home and slam the down.

I then cautiously opened the door, only to find the bee splattered against it, so closely did it pursue.

Dungeonbrownies on 05/06/2008 9:55 pm

I fear grabbing bees, but one summer when my pops grew lots and lots ovv ery tallf lowers, i decided to hide out in the middle of them. when i got bothered enough, i started carrying a pair of scissors with me and i just cut them in half whenever they flew by. I felt like a kungfu master it was frikken awesome, but now that we haev a bee shortage, i regret it.

SickBastard (Guest) on 05/07/2008 2:02 am

Don't get me started on yellow jackets man... those things ruined so many of my childhood summer days; the place where I used to live was full of ground nests and tall grass, and I usually ended up stepping on at least one per summer. This one time I got like 20 stings or something, it was bad. Least you don't got to worry about stingers in your skin afterward. But yeah, bad experiences with those bastards.

Fat_Hippo on 05/07/2008 10:17 am

That's one fucked up story, Max. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if this worked itself into the new game. Somehow, flaming bees seem an oddly fitting enemy for Pickleman.

i-bobbery on 05/07/2008 3:15 pm

Every year these goddamned "Wood bees" make a nest near my front porch. So one day im coming home from school and these two big hairy orange demon looking bastards are hovering near my porch steps. I got close enough that they started following me and In sheer panic Is startted running around the house. Eventually i was going so fast that I didnt realise I squashed them before I even got off the porch.

Scythe (Guest) on 05/07/2008 7:46 pm

My cat eats bees. No, I am not making this up. Last year we adopted a big gray cat from a shelter, who the shelter people named Greyson (very original, I know). One day in the summer when Greyson was outside my dad told me he saw the cat catch a huge bumble bee with his paws. The bee of course stung Greyson, but that seemed to have no effect on him. The cat simply shook his paw, opened his mouth and ate the bee. I have no idea what possessed him to do this, and you think after being stung he would have learned his lesson. Apparently not, because a few weeks later my dad again saw Greyson eat another bee for lunch. I guess he just likes the taste.

Silver on 05/07/2008 11:04 pm

Fat Hippo: Yeah, I do believe that those flying curses would be a fitting adversary for our green hero.

simogene on 05/08/2008 5:59 am

OMG That is the hardest I've laughed all week!

Why oh why is the misery of others so damned funny?????

on a sadder note, I work at a daycare center where we are forced by law to practice "intergrated pest management" which basicly means out yellowjacket killing tools are limited to a hose and a sledgehammer. No poison allowed.

But at least I know we shouldn't set them on fire.

Jaimas on 05/08/2008 2:23 pm

I-Bobbery: Those "wood bees" are Velvet Ants. They're nasty as hell when pissed off, but if you want to drive them away, there's a simple method that doesn't involve poisons.

Get a fire-pot or something, and burn leaves so that smoke rises up to their intended nesting location. The smoke will make them abandon the area.

SupraGenius on 05/09/2008 10:06 pm

This is further funny because my girlfriend was attacked by hornets the day after this was posted. I told her "At least they weren't on fire!". She didn't think it was as funny until I told her your story. Kudos.