RRC Archives

I was deadly allergic to bees the last time I was stung (over 2 decades ago). This time the swelling and itching is just driving me insane - and cutting into my climbing time.

One thing I was told was to avoid eating bananas during the spring/summer/fall when bees are active. Apparently something in bananas attracts bees to you.

Tbone, did you do anything to piss these bees off? The bee that got me must have crawled under my sandal strap, gotten trapped and stung me in defense. I always figured if you didn't piss them off (or attract them) they wouldn't sting you.

Oh, another thing I learned the hard way is that you should not kill wasps or yellow jackets. They emit some kind of odor when killed that signals their comrades to attack.

That is very true for honey bees.You can smell the odor and they do attack in mass.I cant say for sure about wasps and yellow jackets.I have killed lots of wasps and never seen it,like working with honey bees.

I killed a wasp on my deck last summer and several dozen appeared out of nowhere and swarmed on my deck for almost an hour. I was trapped out there since the front door was locked. Later I was told this is normal behavior when one is killed. Perhaps it has to be done in close proximity to their hive? It was under my deck..

I think it is the potassium in the bananas. But I'm not sure. I heard the same thing about eating them during black fly/mosquito season.

I got stung a couple of weeks ago just driving down the road running some errands. What ever it was flew in the window went up my shirt and got me in the back. That thing hurt like a mo fo and usually I would just do first aid on myself but it is kinda hard to do first aid on your own back. Luckily I was only a few blocks from my sister-in-law's house. She is an RN. She fixed me up with some Benadryl, baking soda poultice, a bag of ice and sent me on my way. However, it didn't stop hurting until later that night after I got back from my errands and took a Microhydrin. I got stung on the lip at a deck party once and the hostess had me put some tobacco on it and gave me a shot of Crown Royal.

Lynne, i iwas just sitting still when the yellow jacket got me, same with the hornet. i did piss the wasps off at work. i was pressure washing a house i was working on and did not see the nest until it was too late. I was on a 36 ft ladder and could not get away. I used hydrocortison for the itching , it worked. took ibuprofen for the swellen.the hornet sting was the worst of the 3

Watch those waspeses.

they were out again in force this weekend. Wes got stung by a wasp up on Broken Chicken Wing, and then I went up and a little fucker got me in a particularly tender spot. No one else in our group wanted to do that route again, so Wes had to brave them and was fortunately not stung again. Be careful near the top of that climb!

The yellowjackets and wasps are mean at Miguel's, too. A nice fella from Germany got stung by a wasp while simply sitting at one of the tables out front last night, and I heard a couple of other stories about random stings over the weekend.

Why are they so mean this year??

Those stings i got were bad., but i also came that weekend with an infected 4th toe. the last week it has been sore as hell. got it drained today and have been on antibiotics. it is hard to get climbing shoes on , so i had to stay home this past weekend and just did some bouldering.

"Why are they so mean this year??"

Maybe they are upset about global warming?
Perhaps it is the war in Iraq?
Maybe the whole gay marrage thing?
Ah, I know: They are pissed that the RIAA is sueing all the file swappers for no real reason (besides the whole greed thing).

Wes