Hornets, Hornets, Hornets, Oh My!

Hornets: Nine days ago, I was mowing our lawn, and I drove through the side of our pine tree, hoping to "mow around" it. After going past the tree, I felt something sharp on my arm, and then saw some black things flying around me. I went to leap off the mower, when I realized it might be a good idea to shut the thing off. Somehow I had the presence of mind to turn the key and shut it off before running wildly across the lawn and into the house. Now indoors and totally flustered, I tell Jennie that either I've been stung (or is it 'stang'?) or our pine needles are pretty sharp this time of year. After looking at my arm for a second, I figure it's nothing major and go back out into the yard to find the keys to the mower, which I must have carelessly dropped during my mad dash inside.

As I bend over to grab the keys, something sharp stabbed my left ankle. In other words, a mad hornet had stung me, again.

I dropped the keys and ran inside again, hopping around on one leg. Quite a scene.

When Jennie and I finally muster the courage to look outside at the pine tree, we see from about twenty feet a hornets nest the size of two basketballs put together. Huge! And of course we see about 40-50 hornets swirling and rallying around their nest which was apparently attacked by a large human on a machine. Or is that a human on a large machine?

It has been eight days since that Hornet encounter. I have two stings on my right arm, and one swollen, itchy, red blotch on my left ankle. Dr. Gsellman gave me a prescription for something to treat them with. His assistant asked me, "Are these stings on your body?" I wondered silently where else could I be stung. Could they sting me in the desk? How about stinging me on the trunk of my car? If I am the one being stung, then yes, these stings are on my body. She clarified, "I mean, if they're on your head, then this prescription will be wrong. But if it's on your body... it will help." From this point on, I suppose my head is not part of my body.

Regardless, I have told this Hornet story a dozen times in the past week, and everyone has offered advice. "I know what you should do," they say, assuming this nest is the size of a baby's fist. Or even a baby's head.

"Go out there at night, cause they're asleep, and you can spray them to death."

"Take a big plastic bag, and just cover them up and carry them away."

"If I was you, I'd throw a baseball at that thing and watch them scatter."

"You know, I hear they can follow a bullet's path backward in the air to find the person who shot at them."

Very, very entertaining ideas. Also very kind of people to offer their advice to deal with a hornet's nest that really isn't there problem.

In the end, Perimeter Pest Control came to the rescue. Dale, the PPC rep, came to our place this afternoon to unleash his expertise and chemical fury on our nest.

"Sounds like a bald-faced hornets' nest to me," Dale said over the phone. Dale was right. These hornets were huge, and have a white stripe on their heads. Did I mention that they were huge?

I asked, "Are these pretty common?" Dale chortled, "Oh, absolutely. But your nest is enormous - it's an entire colony of them!"

He continued, "And they don't sleep at night. Those are some nasty hornets you have there."

I got video footage of Dale as he held out a 20-foot pole with a spray can on the end. Whatever he sprayed on that tree, that whole area (nest, pine needles, branches, you name it) turned white within a matter of seconds. Hornets were dropping like flies! Like flies?

After about four good dousings with this freezing spray, dude came out with a longer pole that had a sharp club on the end. He thrashed the nest several times, watching it fall to pieces. Hornets were flying everywhere. Some were looking around the tree, and others were flying to freedom, somewhere in the next neighborhood. Then Dale mentions, "They'll all be dead within five minutes. Anything that even lands on that tree will be dead."

I made a mental note NOT to land on that tree.

He pulled out a huge section of the nest that was shaped like a frisbee - "See these bulbs? These are the larvae - the baby hornets. The only way to kill these is to smush them." Throwing the frisbee on the ground, Dale did the hornet dance and the future hornets were history.

Maybe I'll put the video footage online sometime. All in all, it was pretty cool to have such a large "colony" of hornets in my tree. Not that I'm bragging, or anything. I'm glad they're gone. Thanks, Dale!