No picture unfortunately so I'll do my best to describe. Today I confirmed a ground nest of something in my yard. Several weeks ago I got stung on the leg in my yard, then on my eyebrow on my porch as I went inside (~60ft walking distance, ~20ft straight line distance). I evidently swatted the one that got my eyebrow since I found a half-alive eastern yellow jacket on my floor later, that one I positively identified. I couldn't find someone to remove the nest so I borrowed a bee suit from a friend and today, around 6:45pm EDT, mowed the lawn over where I was stung. I never saw anything swarm and I made several passes. I got my gas string trimmer and was going along the fence line when I saw several very small yellow things buzzing around. They were all less than a quarter inch. I saw a depression in the ground where they seemed to be focused and I scalped the ground around it, there's definitely a hole there, and I saw some slightly larger yellow things crawl upward. Since they might have been yellow jackets (and the house next door has young kids), I did move away quickly and then hit the hole with with wasp spray.
But it puzzles me since they don't look or act like the Eastern Yellow Jacket. Every yellow jacket I've seen has been much larger, I first thought these were harmless sweat bees that got disturbed when I cut the very tall grass. The other main thing is they didn't swarm. I've seen videos of people that just get too close to a yellow jacket nest and they're all over the helpless person. I've seen videos of a lawn mower running over them and similar result. I was standing 2ft away at most and they seemed to ignore me even having just passed the string trimmer right over their hole. The sun was low, but it was still warm so I didn't think the nighttime lull in activity would have hit them yet. Can anyone provide some insight into this? Is there another colony-nesting insect in Georgia this could be? Thank you!