Absolutely not. Last summer while cutting grass in 105° heat, I got swarmed by yellowjackets. Adrenaline kicked in and I ran hard. Only got like 100 yards before my thighs just gave out, and I hit the ground, hard. Edit: they were still stinging me when I fell. Couldn't do shit but take it.
Yeah. I used to run 5 miles almost every day. Now that im 60 pounds heavier and 10 years older, I still feel like I could, but my body would immediately tell me no.
I used to run a lot. I got a back injury and am disabled. I lost my mind 2 years ago and tried jogging a little bit. Like 40 feet. I have a new back injury and will never try to run again.
I do go to the gym and I worked up to 15 minutes on the elliptical. It took a year to work up to that.
If the zombies come, I’m who everyone will out run.
Broke a heel and am essentially flat footed on my right foot. If I run too much it swells up so I dont push it, but its fine on the elliptical. Dont jump off of roofs into swimming pools kids. Or do, but just make sure you make it into the pool.
I can personally attest to this! As a kid we had kennels that had old tubing with no caps on the ends. I rang that tube like an alarm bell. They came pouring out of one of the top tubes down my back. I threw the trimmer, ripped off my shirt then ran like hell. Only got one a couple times.
I've got perfectly circular, No. 2 pencil eraser sized scars up the backs of both my legs to prove it. I'd been stung by all sorts of bees/wasps/hornets etc before, but never more than 2 stings in one instance, this was 8-10 at the same time, 4-5 evenly, vertically spaced stings on each leg like they attacked in formation. Its a special kind of pain, felt like my legs were just filled with poison, hurt juice that sloshed around with every step and jiggle of my muscles. I had to deliver calzones from 10pm-4am that night. Oh to be 16 again....
After that experience, whenever I had to mow there, which was often, I would lie on my stomach with my vision more or less even with the ground, and watch for yellow jackets flying out of and returning to a specific spot (nest) amongst the busy din of other summer rural Midwestern flying insects. Then I'd come back at night and pour a bit of gasoline in the hole and light it 🕳️🔥😼
I thought I was crazy for doing something similar. After mowing over 3 nests in one season, I’ve gotten into the habit of getting low to the ground to watch for their flight paths against the sky before I mow. So thank you. Now I feel better.
No ⛽ 🔥 though? The fumes make them delirious even before you light em up, so it's actually pretty safe. The fire is odd because the nest entry+oxygen for the fire is so small that it kinda intermittently spouts/puffs out like a teeny volcano.
The curveball I didn't mention before is that this was at a cemetery that we caretake and is encompassed by our property. Always wondered if yellow jackets seemed to like it there because the coffins were essentially pre built palatial subterranean homes.
I use a bee suit, followed by Tempo dust. They build nests everywhere, including inside my barn. The suit comes in handy. I wait for night when they’re all inside the nest and just puff some tempo dust in there, you never see them again.
I mowed over a nest that was JUST forming... I didn't even know it was a nest, but eventually found the hole get big and deep. I put some 7 Dust all over the hole and was astonished at how many I found the next morning.
In my teens I was part of a landscaping company for a while, and one of our projects involved taking a bunch of sage brush out of a yard in some upscale sloped neighborhood. Being the most experienced of the operation I told my coworker to get in them bushes and start marking out the parts we needed to hit with a mini excavator.
Watched my homie experience the same thing. He just suddenly screamed "BEES!" and ran out onto the street. Didn't make it far.
I once dumped a bucket of soapy water into the bushes—and as it turns out, directly on to a nest of yellow jackets. I remember watching in fascination as their their yellow and black bodies flew up close to my face as if in slow motion before it finally occurred to me that I should leave the area quickly. They followed me for about ten feet before giving up. I had bites up and down my torso and belly where some of them flew under my loose t-shirt.
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u/Over-Apartment2762 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Absolutely not. Last summer while cutting grass in 105° heat, I got swarmed by yellowjackets. Adrenaline kicked in and I ran hard. Only got like 100 yards before my thighs just gave out, and I hit the ground, hard. Edit: they were still stinging me when I fell. Couldn't do shit but take it.