Thread: Bee 🐝 or wasp

The pain and terror of a wasp attack




BERNARD SHAPIRO
Last updated 16:28, December 18 2017







Anyone who's ever suffered a single wasp sting will know exactly how painful it can be. When they attack in numbers it can be life-threatening.



Our Taiwanese/Kiwi family had recently made the move from Christchurch into Banks Peninsula, welcomed by the local community with warmth, BBQs and humour.
Loving the mixture of native bush and tussock-land scenery, my wife and I took our two boys walking to open them up to the joys of life in the country.
Puffing up the powder-dry dirt road, trees craning their shadows on us as we passed, the chuckle of an invisible stream below; we were being orbited repeatedly by two little monsters aged 8 and 6 as they screamed and laughed along the track.


Our ageing spaniel Peppy was at heel, unfettered by any lead (she was well trained, stock-aware and worked as a possum dog on farms for years), looking up at us with the furry joy of a recently retired gun dog.

We clambered over a gate grown thick with kanuka and into a pine plantation for a blue view of the distant hills.
Bernard Shapiro
The family photo - seconds before we had unexpected visitors.



Feeling hot, we stopped to give the boys a break and to take a quick photo on a steep, rocky slope under the shade of pines.
"What's going on with her?", my wife said. Her comment turned my head to my heels; our poor dog was completely surrounded by a buzzing dogfight of angry yellow wasps
"Run!", I shouted. "Run, uphill NOW!".
Bernard Shapiro
Our very sore dog, Peppy, after the wasp attack.



My wife and the boys scrambled away, sending rocks tinkling and skipping behind them. I entered the boil and grabbed Peppy's collar, dragging her out of the trees. I threw her over a fence and into the tussock downhill.




Intense stabs of pain shot through my arms, shoulders, hair, face and neck like the prickle of sweat on a bad sunburn.
I set about striking at the dog all over with a shirt as tiny insect bodies came apart in her fur. I raked my boot across her body as if she was some kind of doormat while she whimpered in pain and fright.
Voices called out in the distance, some fool shouting at them to stay away and walk back while I dragged my poor dog downhill, swearing loudly and seeing red.
There was a field of tussock between me and the pines, I was no longer seeing the wasp cloud. I picked my dog up and flung her over my shoulders, as one last winged assassin plunged its tiny stiletto into my neck five or six times. I shrugged the villain into silence.
When we finally returned home, neck aching, our dog whimpering in a quiet corner. The fever, pain and anger made me irritable and short with my words. I was stung more than 40 times that day.
I looked down as my spaniel, waiting at heel, snorted and looked up at me typing; Two little monsters aged 9 and 7 wanting me to help them build a hut in the bush.
I clicked the 'submit' button.
- Stuff Nation

Diesel down the hole also works. It’s oily so gets on to them. The smell also kills them. Fill a small soft drink bottle, upend it into the hole and leave it there to block the hole. Probably the same as two stroke. Just don’t use straight petrol unless that’s all you have.