Got into a bee hive today

I am mowing every thing is going ok, after I pulled 20 ft of plastic mesh out of my blade drum. I got close to a tree stump. On the next round bees everywhere. In ha hurry to leave I shift into low. Then into low again. I should have shift into high range. I am creeping along in low low, finally got into a higher gear. swatting bees all the time. I got stung five times. They would not leave me alone. I got in my truck, then they are at the window trying to get me. Usually if I leave bees alone they settle down after 5-10 minutes. Not these suckers. I am a long ways from the bees trying to finish. They still buzzing around me. There's just going to be a section of this field not mowed. Hope you had a better day. Stan

I bent a LITTLE pin over on a connector for a controller today, blew it out, cost me $4500, so not the greatest here.

Sure hope you don't get reaction to the stings. If you feel any funny fealing in your throat get to the hospital.

Honeybees? Ground bees like yellow jackets? Do you know what kind? Was using my tractor the other day, some wasps flying all over. Stopped to check the tractor over see where the nest might be, didn't see anything. Started it up again and here come the wasps. Didn't get stung, though.

Ah but where they in fact bees or where they wasps. Sorry one thing I do not like if people putting bees in the wording if in fact they where wasps which is more likely

(quoted from post at 19:53:59 05/14/19) Ah but where they in fact bees or where they wasps. Sorry one thing I do not like if people putting bees in the wording if in fact they where wasps which is more likely

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Same here

Only five?? I got into a ground nest with my weed eater one time and had about 40. Fortunately I don't react bad, they just itch like hell for a couple of weeks. I'm with old, they weren't bees.

These were real bees. The ones I killed were bees all right. stan

Africanized bees don't give up easily. If 1 stings it leaves a scent for others to follow. Just getting stung 5 times is lucky.

Ok but many people call wasps bees and beig a former bee keeper I hate to have a wasp call a bee

Sounds like Bumble Bees they'll keep on after you,the little ones are especially determined.Best thing to do is stay calm and don't start fighting them when you start to fight them it
gives them a target.

Around here you can find ground bee nests which I think are a type of yellow jacket. I have plowed them up before - they hate that I can tell you. I've also had them get inside the cement block wall of my garage. They will come out and sting you if you are just standing there watching them. They are nasty critters no matter where you find them.

Sounds like yellow jackets. The bane of mower operators.

lol, i had a similar experience some years ago on a wild fire, we fought fire in conifer forests, this fire was in south Texas, a totally different animal fire behavior wise , the dozer crew was warned to watch for capped oil and gas wells,when building containment lines, nice! nothing was said about bees, who nested on the ground, sure enough we hit one of their nests, bees thick and everywhere, and mad! back in camp me and another guy was talking about that experience to a neighbor crew, one said yep, if you hit a nest you have to put your tractor in high gear and go like heck, ...high gear? this is a d-6! high gear is still slower than they can fly!

Agree, probably yellowjackets. First thing on a cool morning nuke them in their hole.

Around here Bumble Bees....you know the big suckers with black and yellow striping....colored and the size of wood boring bees, nest in the ground and any field that hasn't been touched for years is prone to have them.

There is also a large Yellow Jacket, really large and yellow, not orange like the smaller ones that build nests near the ground....they love gates with holes close to the ground that they can get into.

If I were working in that kind of area, I'd have a large bottle of insect spray mix and let them have it as I was making my get away.

Was mowing down a row of Junipers one day and came upon a nest that was moving from a dead tree out front of the place to some where else. Just a big wad of the suckers, like the size of a Soccer Ball, hanging on the tree limbs. Glad I saw it before I hit it.

I would have left the tractor and run.

that's why I mow with cabed tractors

My dad plowed right through a huge bumble bee's nest years ago. My brother and me were walking the furrows picking up worms to go fishing after supper that night. When the swarm attacked us, I ran across the un-plowed section, but my brother tried stumbling across the plowed part and soon fell. The bees soon gave up on me and concentrated on him as he lay on the ground.
I ran diagonally across the field to the fence-row, then turned and ran to the headland, then turned again and ran towards my dad, who didnt know anything at all about the maelstrom that was going on behind him.
We ran back to my bee-covered brother and with our jackets we beat him and the bees, garnering quite a few stings ourselves.
My dad finally grabbed my brother, slung him over his shoulder and took off while I fought a rear guard action to cover our hasty retreat to the truck. As we drove to the Dr's, bees kept coming out of his clothes, bouncing around the cab and eventually flying out the windows. When he got stripped down at the hospital he had a few dozen dead bees still squashed under his clothes, a few in some pretty tender areas!
He ended up spending a few days in the hospital, swollen up until his eyes wouldnt open and looking like the Michelin Man, and he wasnt even allergic to them.

Instead of going fishing that night, my dad and I burned that nest out. When my brother got home, he punched me for beating him so hard with my jacket (Oh, yeah, I also collected rocks and arrowheads when walking the fields, so my pockets were full of bruising ballast)!

This guy explains pretty well.
Wasp bee hornet

When I was a kid I'd use my cap to knock down bumble bees when I got into them mowing pasture with the old 8N and 5' BMB. I never got stung back then, however, last summer I woke a nest up with my riding mower. I got nailed on the noggin 3 times before I got away and made it into the house. Apparently my "swat" isn't what I was when I was 15. The cap stays on in the future. gm

That is one of the reasons I traded my brush hogging tractor in on one with the cab