I' m going to whine a little bit here.
Went bowhunting tonight at my favorite spot, favorite tree stand location. Have not been there this year. Tie my bow to the pull up string and start climbing. Get about 15 feet off the ground or 3/4 the way up and a couple hornet start buzzing at my head. Before I know it hornets are everywhere buzzing and stinging me. Mostly in the head(its not nice to pick on bald people). I start down the tree as fast as possible, miss one step and soon I' m just bear hugging the tree and sliding down. Hornets everywhere, buzzing, stinging at me.
Once on the ground I have a hard time getting my bow and arrows(next to the tree), get stung some more and got the heck out of there.
Here in a small tree that I use to climb into my bigger tree, there is a paper wasp nest about eight feet off the ground. This is actually one of three trees I use in my accent and the one I use towards the end. So when I stood on a branch of this small tree it shook the nest and made them mad. THEY WEREN' T JUST MAD, THEY WERE VERY MAD
I itch all over, I' m swelling up at the sting sites and don' t feel all to great. The left side of my head feels real tender. I bet I have somewhere between 12-24 stings.
Somebody had told me the bees were bad this year in Southern Wisconsin, and now I really believe them.
Never had an experience like this in thirty years of bowhunting.
Well, enough whining. Now its time for action!
How do I take my tree away from them stinging pests? Without having another battle? Spray it with hornet spray? Cut the nest down at night? Any ideas?
Thanks
Dan
I' ve used that wasp/hornet spray and it works well. Good thing about it is you don' t have to get very close. It will reach about 20' . Hope you get to feeling better soon and good luck getting rid of the buggers
__________________
A bad day hunting is better than Any day at work.
We' ve had a lot of hornets in southern Michigan too this year. We had a big nest right under the eave of my house. I went out there at night and just soaked it with the hornet spray that can reach out about 20 ft. It killed all the hornets right at the hole into the nest and clogged it up so the others inside couldn' t get out. Heck, the nest is still hanging there. I wanted to make sure they all died inside before I knocked it down.
I have noticed that some of the commercial sprays have not been very effective on the various buggers around the house. In conversation about it, my uncle mentioned he uses break cleaner. My brother-in-law then chimed in and said yeah that knocks right out of the air and they are dead before they hit the ground.
Hello
Just for the record. Those hornets won the battle, but I won the war.
I went back out at dawn,(a week later) it was about 40 degrees and the little buggers were in the nest. I took a can of hornet spray and foamed the exit hole really well, then took my pole snippers and cut the nest from the tree. Then I stomped on it until it was flattened. Then I sprayed the rest of the spray from that one can on the flattened nest.
For the record, I wore heavy insulated coveralls and jacket. Duct taped the pant legs to my rubber boots, the jacket sleeves to my leather gloves. Wore a hat under a hood from a sweatshirt and then a full camo headnet. There was no way they could have stung me. Though they didn' t even come out of the nest when I got them, probably because it was so cold.
But the experience kind of made me paronoid when I go to a tree stand now. I stand on the ground checking the tree out for a nest before climbing up. After the swelling in my arm went down after that attack, I counted nine stings on my left wrist alone. My head was nailed the worst.
And this is what hunting is all about, the memories. Good and bad.
Happy Hunting
Dan
Bad Night Bowhunting-got my butt kicked
