Bumble bees

How do the bees know to sting me and not the tractor?

James

Why do they always land BUTT-First, when you are riding a Motorcycle...??!!!!!

I guess they can tell the difference..!

Funny how Honey Bees usually won't bother you..even if they are flying all around...
Got stuck ( Almost, but backed out) once right in front of a Honey Bee Super and never got one sting..!!

Ron..

Possibly can smell ya. Dont know for sure. I hit a big nest of bumble bees disking and they were hitting the exaust pipe as often as me. Sounded like hail, ping ping ping. I kicked it out of gear and ran. They buzzed the tractor for 2-3 minuates before giving up. muffler didnt swell up like I did though.

I spun up a nest of ground bees with a rotary hoe one day on my old AC WD... Those suckers pinged off my back, the fenders, the muffler, and the gas tank like none other.

They knocked it off when I went back the next day with the '30 fogger and hosed 'em, though. :twisted:

I was out cutting up some wood with my brother this morning and looked down at my pant leg and two yellow jackets were on them stinging away, but were baggie enough didn't get me so I swatted them down on the ground and stomped them out. Two yellow jackets usually means a million yellow jackets, but they were all. Maybe they were just out on a scouting mission looking for you and ran into me?

My experience with bumble bees is that they generally aren't aggressive and don't sting, and are usually pretty docile unlike yellow jackets or hornets. I got stung by one once, but I was little and my brother told me that I couldn't catch one in my hand. We were in clover and I kept catching them, black and yellow as big as humming birds, opening my hand and let them fly away, and have my brother say, "I didn't see it" over and over and over until finally I jumped about three feet off of the ground when one got me. Making matters worse, my brother told me I had 5 minutes to get the stinger out or I would die. I ran screaming all the way home and my mother saved my life. Our mother had grey hair by the time she was 29. My brother and I owe her a lot for that and will never be able to repay her, ever.

Mark

I rember cutting hay for an old uncle that liked to harvest red clover late. I had a lot of bumble bees in the field. They paid more attention to the muffler noise of my 560 diesel than they did to me, but you can bet when one was arround I sat as still as i could in the seat.

I remember alot of times in the days before cabs when it was a common sight in our hayfield to see a tractor suddendly stopped and a kid running away from it(as often as not it was me)! Then, dad would drive over and get on the tractor and drive it to where it was "safe"...

I also remember my grandad on the mow tractor, bumblebees swarming around his head, and him not paying any attention to 'em, occasionally brushing them away with his hand.... He told me that when he was younger alot of guys would carry pingpong paddles with holes drilled in them like a flyswatter to smack the bumblebees with.

One other memory, I was about 11 and changing a sickle on a mower once and a bumblebee landed on the ground not far away, so naturally I stepped on him...the ground under my boot started to buzz and vibrate, and when I moved my foot a whole swarm of the things came pouring out of the ground! Ran to the pickup and rolled up the windows and escaped to safety...and yup, dad had to go move the mow tractor!

bumble bees see in the ultraviolet light wave lenghts, and they also have a good sense of smell. rapid movement attracts them also. also, the bumble bee does not have a barbed stinger and can sting numerous times. not sure what the top speed of a bumble bee is, but i hit a nest 2 weeks ago with the backhoe, and did some real olympic style running into the bean field to get away from em. left the hoe running for an hour before the bees settled down enough for me to get the engine shut off.

Wish you had some video of that. Not often you get to see grown men running full out.

When I was young, 6 or 7, my uncles and some friends of theirs were up in our junk pile looking for something, I was sitting in the pickup watching. They opened the trunk of some old car to find a family of skunks and momma skunk turning on them. They all yelped, and knees and elbows was all I saw as they were low running as fast as they could, bumping into each other splitting in different directions. One of the funniest things I've ever seen. Smiling now just thinking of it.