Stirring up a hornet's nest -- literally!
- 08/30/2013
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Over the years, I have stirred up plenty of symbolic hornet's nests with my controversial stances on various issues -- but this time I did it for real. OK, they were really Yellow Jackets, the smaller cousins of the Bald-faced Hornet -- but they get just as angry when you disturb their nests. Yellow Jackets coming out of an underground nest (Photo courtesy of South Texas Nature Images on Flikr) Of course I didn't do this on purpose -- nobody does that! A couple days ago the wind took down a paper birch tree, and I needed some nice sticks for an upcoming Cub Scout craft project that my grandson's Pack is planning to do. (Since I have a wood lot, it falls to me to provide a lot of the natural materials.) I thought the white birch bark would look nice, so this morning I went out to cut off some of the branches -- and unwittingly stepped into the nest. Yellow Jackets usually nest in the ground, often using an old rabbit hole or other tunnel, so they are very hard to see until it is too late This one was covered by the crown of the fallen tree. I was so intent on choosing and cutting my salvaged branches that I did not notice the wasps until a swarm was buzzing around me. Luckily I was wearing heavy pants tucked into my boots, in preparation for tromping through underbrush in the ditch where the tree fell. Good thing, because those little buggers grabbed onto the cloth of my pants and really hung on -- if I had been wearing shorts, I...
Stirring up a hornet's nest -- literally!
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