Bees, Wasps, and Yellow-Jackets
Category:
Viii Little Foes Of The Trailer
While honey-bees and wasps can make themselves most disagreeable when
disturbed, you can usually keep away from beehives and bee-trees as
well as from the great gray, papery nests of the wasp; but the hornets
or yellow-jackets have an uncomfortable habit of building in low bushes
and on the ground where you may literally put your foot in a hornets'
nest.
They are hot-tempered little people, these same hornets, as I have
reason to know. Twice I have been punished by them, and both times it
was my head they attacked. Once I found them, or they found me, in a
cherry-tree; and the second time we met was when I stepped in their nest
hidden on the ground. Their sting is like a hot wire pressed into the
flesh. When angered they will chase you and swarm around your head,
stinging whenever they can; but they may be beaten off if some friendly
hand will wield a towel or anything else that comes handy.
If the stings of any of these stinging insects are left in the wounds
they should be taken out with a _clean_ needle or _clean_ knife-blade.
In any case mix some mud into a paste and plaster it on the parts that
have been stung. If you are in camp and have with you a can of
antiphlogistine use that instead of the mud; it is at least more sightly
and is equally efficient in reducing inflammation.
Various things have been devised as protection against insect torments.
One is a veil of net to be worn over the hat. You will find this
described in Chapter IV under the heading of Personal Outfits.
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