what kind of critter is this that just ate me up?

[JcMack]

When I saw your OP pic I thought sweat bee. That's what my dad called em. I don't see many here in NW Indiana but when I do it's one or two at a time, not a whole bunch. I've had run ins with yellow jackets and they're at least 3/4" long.

 

[deno56]

Lee they are sweat bees I have them all over my yard the sting hurts like hell.

 

[Lee Barner]

David, leave them on the north end of town. these must have followed you over here last week. these are yellow jackets. I took a dead one and showed them at the clinic. lee

 

[bdGreen]

Lee, here is the one that got me.

Right on the very tip of my middle finger.

I was in the garage running the table saw and felt something crawl down my neck in the back of my shirt.

I reached over the top of my head and pulled my shirt off.

OMG!

The burn!

I pulled the stinger out from the end of my finger and placed it onto a piece of paper and went into the house for some consolation from my wife.
You know how that went, right?

Anyway, a couple of days later I looked down on the floor in the garage and there he was. Sure enough. Through a great amount of forensic detective work I determined he was the one that stung me. And, my pictures prove that out.

His stinger looks like some medieval weapon. Felt like it too.

enjoy,

bdGreen

 

[6518John]

I took a dead one and showed them at the clinic. lee

Lee—After that I bet the clinic workers were glad you weren't attacked by a bear!!??

 

[Narragansett]

Yellow Jackets are nasty beings, and will chase you good. I have had a couple run ins with underground nests. What U do is wait till dark, pour a teaspoon of 74% chlordane down the hole with a cup of water, put a flat stone over the hole, and presto, all gone. I am fortunate to still have chlordane. Deadly to bees, but I would say a good hornet and wasp spray shot down the hole and a rock would do the same trick

 

[ldausmc1369]

Gasoline and a match! Napalm them. They get me at least once a year!

 

[soFlaNative]

Sweat, honey, bumblebee, yellow jacket, mud dauber, paper wasp, hornet, horse or deer fly, no see ums I call them all the same names.

 

[Watchdog]

Lee, how many times I done told you, stay away from them yellow jackets.

You just won't listen, though, will you?

 

[shouldazagged]

I've never seen a yellowjacket only 3/16" long. The ones here are at or over half an inch, mostly over, and sting like Satan spit.

I don't know what those little buggers are, but they have to go.

 

[joe44va]

Amazon sells a powder that you squirt into the hole after dark when they are all back home. Very effective and I use it at least once a year, somewhere. Terrible critters. Lee, I hope you get thru this without complications.

 

[6518John]

Sweat, honey, bumblebee, yellow jacket, mud dauber, paper wasp, hornet, horse or deer fly, no see ums I call them all the same names.

The names I call them can't be printed here.

 

[armorer951]

Looks like a ground hornet to me.

 

[RobertJ.]

I was working outside a few years ago and got swarmed by yellow jackets. I was parked about 50 yards from where I was working, so I ran as fast as I could for my vehicle, failing my arms and trying to get them out of my shirt. I made it to the car and got in and took off, rolled all my windows down, and drove as fast as I could until they were all out of my car. The entire time I was picturing Chris Farley in the movie Tommy Boy pretending he was being swarmed! It was funny and terrifying at the same time! I had over two dozen stings on just one arm, and at least that many on my back. Thankfully I'm not allergic to them, but I loaded up on Benadryl anyway.

 

[M29since14]

Nothing makes a grown man run screaming like a girl quite like a nest of yellow jackets.

I'm not much into screaming but I dare say even at my age I can almost certainly outrun most little girls when those #@&*+! things are after me. After I've escaped, I've been known to more or less quietly tell them what I think of them, from safe stand-off distance.

We call those yellow jackets or just plain old ground bees, in my neck of the woods.

 

[Lee Barner]

from what I heard from different folks around here today is that the small yellar jackets live in the ground and the larger ones build nests like wasps. I had an in-ground hornets nest years back. I saw them circling around a hole on the bank of my yard. after dark I poured about a pint of gas in it, left the bottle and ran for it. never saw them again. lee

 

[00Buck2]

Every year I encounter at least 2 nests in the round every year while mowing/bush hogging at home. The ones around here look bigger than the one in your photo. Anyway for several years I would pour gas down the hole, after the sunset and light it. Sometimes it worked and other times I would have to repeat the application of gas and fire to completely rid them.

About 10 years a friend was over visiting and accompanied me to exterminate another nest that I found in the pasture. When I went to light it he asked what I was doing. I informed him that I was fixing to "Burn the B@$T@rd devils alive".

He explained to me that the fumes from the unburnt gas is what kills them while its in the ground. He described that if I lit the gas it would only kill the ones that were exposed to the fire.

I have never lit a match to them since and I have never had to put gas down a yellow jacket hole more than once since. Although lighting it was the best part, I guess that's just the man thing to do when gas is involved.

Hope your feeling better! I have know people to develop severe allergic reactions to bee stings as they get older.

PS. I'm not saying you're older, just that I have seen it happen to people who were not allergic to them in their younger years.

 

[LVSteve]

At a rough guess, it's a critter from this rather extensive list.

Order Hymenoptera - Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies - BugGuide.Net

My guess is a kind of mining bee.

 

[Snapping Twig]

Yellow jacket, or as we call them - meat bee. Leave a piece of hamburger out and see for yourself.

Malathion is awesome for killing them.

Pour gasoline in the hole at night if you like and put a rock over the opening.

 

[ACORN]

Around here they're ground bees.
As a kid we always called those big fat furry bees queen bees, which I know is incorrect. Must be a regional thing. What's the proper name for those?