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Bee Stings suck

Oh! We called those "asps". I got hit by one as a kid on my knee. I missed a couple of days of school bc of it. Bad news bears, those things are.
 
I usually only open my face shield when I slow down and it is really hot. But I'm rethinking that. I have had a bee/wasp go straight in and sting me on my eyebrow. Also, twice I've had some small flying thing enter from the open face shield and work its way into my ear and start moving around. This is worse than a Chinese torture. You can't get your finger inside the helmet so the creature starts dining on your brain. An emergency stop is in order.

I've also had a wasp/bee sting me through my textile jacket when traveling at 70 mph. He must have been flying stinger first and made a Kamikaze maneuver.
 
I usually only open my face shield when I slow down and it is really hot. But I'm rethinking that. I have had a bee/wasp go straight in and sting me on my eyebrow. Also, twice I've had some small flying thing enter from the open face shield and work its way into my ear and start moving around. This is worse than a Chinese torture. You can't get your finger inside the helmet so the creature starts dining on your brain. An emergency stop is in order.

I've also had a wasp/bee sting me through my textile jacket when traveling at 70 mph. He must have been flying stinger first and made a Kamikaze maneuver.

lol the things we are willing to put up with for the sport we love.

i flew into a cloud of little stinging things on my way to work one day. When i got to work and was changing in the bathroom, a coworker saw the little welts on my upper arms and across my shoulders. she was shocked. that settled it for her right then and there: she was never going to ride a m/c for sure!
 
Gina, after my experiences, every time I see a Harley rider tooling along with no helmet I wonder what all they endure. We haven't even mentioned the occasional rock thrown up and ricocheting off your head. :eek2:
 
Oh man, there is nothing worse than a fly climbing around on your ear inside your helmet when you can't stop and get it out. Give me the shivers thinking about it. I'll take a bee sting over that any day.

As for riding without a helmet, I agree. They are not just crash protection, especially if your following Rman or JMZ around down some gravel road.
 
Y'all are right, i have thought about that. And the fact that my contact lenses would just be blown right off my eyeballs without a face shield. Or, mebbe I'd develop a steely eyed squint...
 
Oh man, there is nothing worse than a fly climbing around on your ear inside your helmet when you can't stop and get it out. Give me the shivers thinking about it. I'll take a bee sting over that any day..


Many times, it has felt like a bug was crawling around in my helmet, but I never find the bug when I stop and remove my helmet. Then I'm left wondering if I imagined the whole thing.

I can only think of one bee sting while riding. My jacket was partially unzipped and it got me good in the chest.
 
you have not lived till you have taken a large armored flying beetle to the adams apple at 70+mph

1969 at night I turned down a residential street on my new CB-350 wearing an open face helmet, something hit me square on the nose. My hands came off the handle bars and I remember seeing the red light from my tail light. Fortunately the bike continued straight and I was able rise up and grab the bars. Don't know what it was but it hurt. Could have been a small bat.

I used to tell people that didn't ride that there were 4 kinds of bugs.

1) The little mushy ones that splatter.
2) The little hard ones that sting.
3) The big mushy ones that make big splatters
4) And God forbid the big hard ones that hurt like ****! :giveup:

By the way, I had a spider crawl across the inside of my visor a few years ago. Not sure how it got there. I don't like spiders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Many times, it has felt like a bug was crawling around in my helmet, but I never find the bug when I stop and remove my helmet. Then I'm left wondering if I imagined the whole thing.

I can only think of one bee sting while riding. My jacket was partially unzipped and it got me good in the chest.

You need to get a CT Head scan. There is a good chance you have a head full of bugs. :lol2:
 
Worst part of the flying thing crawling about in the ear is now even the tickle of a bead of sweat or a frayed stitch freaks you out. Does me anyways.



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In cough 30+ years 1 sting several close calls. 2 or 3 inside the visor. The worst one was one that apparently had a glancing blow on my heavy leather jacket. The poor dear decided to crawl somewhere warm and soft, well not as warm and soft as it is now. I took one on the belly under my tshirt. Driving down the road thumping at my belly till I could get stopped. My buddies say it was quite entertaining to watch.

I have hit a few at high rates of velocity to where you need to pull over to see if you were actually shot.....
 
Gina, after my experiences, every time I see a Harley rider tooling along with no helmet I wonder what all they endure. We haven't even mentioned the occasional rock thrown up and ricocheting off your head. :eek2:

the ones I really wonder about are the guys running ape hangers and t-shirts? How DO they get the bugs outta the armpit hair, not to mention getting stung there? :lol2:
 
30 years of on and off road riding and never had the pleasure of a bee/wasp encounter. Good to be lucky. :zen:
 
I got nailed in the upper chest recently when I didn't have a jacket on. Merging onto the highway when I felt a sharp cutting pain near where the cross of my necklace sits. I actually said, "ow!" inside my helmet.

The necklace and cross are both gold, and the cross is thin. With the necklace being whipped around by the wind I assumed the cross landed perfectly and cut me.

I got home and it was red and irritated but thought nothing more. It wasn't until later in the evening I played attention and noticed it had swelled up more and the stinger was still embedded under my skin. Wife jumped at the opportunity to use her tweezers.

Those if you that got stung multiple times, are you sure they weren't wasps? Bees just sting once and die. Wasps are jerks and can continue going.
 
The first time was in 2002 at Camp Lejeune, NC, when a red wasp ended up going down the collar of my jacket and t-shirt. It stung me several times before I got pulled over and out of the gear and un-tucked my shirt. The next time was in 2011 in Wisconsin. I was wearing an open-face helmet as I was only riding in a village with a top speed of 35 mph, so I figured "why not?". A honey bee hit me on the side of my chin, leaving its stinger in my face. Both of those incidents were more annoying and amusing than painful.

Far worse than those two incidents was hitting and being sprayed by a skunk. Instant, uncontrollable gagging, involuntary closing of the eyes. Lucky to be on a Ural because I think if I were on a two-wheeled bike for that incident, I'd have gone down.

Last summer, I had the worst incident. I rode from New Braunfels to the Canyon Lake dam when I suddenly started feeling a bug crawling up my sleeve. I figured if it was a stinging bug, that it would have stung me already. I could feel the tickle of it crawling across my skin as it went up my arm to my back. I could feel it crawling on me all the way back home and figured it was probably a june bug as it wasn't stinging and it was evening time and they were out in large numbers. Only after I was in my neighborhood, about a mile from the house, when the thing decided to identify itself with a sting to the middle of my back. It felt as though I were being branded. The worst sting I've ever felt. Worse than any bee, wasp, scorpion, or spider I'd ever felt before. I rode like Evel Knieval to my house, jumped off the bike, and then slammed my back against the wall of my house in order to kill the unfriendly, unwelcome passenger. I then ripped my gear off to find that it was a hornet. The pain of the initial sting only got worse as the evening progressed. By morning time, my whole torso was in pain and my breathing was difficult. It required a trip to the emergency room. I was given a shot of some sort of antihistamine and spent the next day in bed. It took a few days for the pain of the sting to die down. It kept me from sleeping, it was so bad. This past July, I had a slightly milder reaction to being stung on the thumb by a paper wasp as I was mowing my lawn. I guess our body chemistry changes over time, as I have obviously developed an allergy to wasp and hornet stings. Now, when stung, my plan is to head immediately to the closest emergency room.

So, as long as you're not allergic, bees and wasps are only a nuisance. Far worse is being sprayed by a skunk. But if you ever develop the allergy, it's a real nightmare.
 
I was thinking about this thread yesterday while feeding the bees. Normally we prefer not to feed, but we had a late season swarm and they are too small to make the winter without help. Anyway, we have a one gallon chicken feeder full of sugar water covered with bees and a few yellow jackets. I tried to get a photo of both. If it is clear I'll post it up.
 
Here is one that shows the two insects side by side. European honey bees are the ones closer to brown. Yellow Jackets are far more aggressive and when they are attacking it's hard to stop and examine them.

YellowJacketvsHoneyBeeSmall_zpsr6aebxvo.png
 
The first time was in 2002 at Camp Lejeune, NC, when a red wasp ended up going down the collar of my jacket and t-shirt. It stung me several times before I got pulled over and out of the gear and un-tucked my shirt. The next time was in 2011 in Wisconsin. I was wearing an open-face helmet as I was only riding in a village with a top speed of 35 mph, so I figured "why not?". A honey bee hit me on the side of my chin, leaving its stinger in my face. Both of those incidents were more annoying and amusing than painful.

Far worse than those two incidents was hitting and being sprayed by a skunk. Instant, uncontrollable gagging, involuntary closing of the eyes. Lucky to be on a Ural because I think if I were on a two-wheeled bike for that incident, I'd have gone down.

Last summer, I had the worst incident. I rode from New Braunfels to the Canyon Lake dam when I suddenly started feeling a bug crawling up my sleeve. I figured if it was a stinging bug, that it would have stung me already. I could feel the tickle of it crawling across my skin as it went up my arm to my back. I could feel it crawling on me all the way back home and figured it was probably a june bug as it wasn't stinging and it was evening time and they were out in large numbers. Only after I was in my neighborhood, about a mile from the house, when the thing decided to identify itself with a sting to the middle of my back. It felt as though I were being branded. The worst sting I've ever felt. Worse than any bee, wasp, scorpion, or spider I'd ever felt before. I rode like Evel Knieval to my house, jumped off the bike, and then slammed my back against the wall of my house in order to kill the unfriendly, unwelcome passenger. I then ripped my gear off to find that it was a hornet. The pain of the initial sting only got worse as the evening progressed. By morning time, my whole torso was in pain and my breathing was difficult. It required a trip to the emergency room. I was given a shot of some sort of antihistamine and spent the next day in bed. It took a few days for the pain of the sting to die down. It kept me from sleeping, it was so bad. This past July, I had a slightly milder reaction to being stung on the thumb by a paper wasp as I was mowing my lawn. I guess our body chemistry changes over time, as I have obviously developed an allergy to wasp and hornet stings. Now, when stung, my plan is to head immediately to the closest emergency room.

So, as long as you're not allergic, bees and wasps are only a nuisance. Far worse is being sprayed by a skunk. But if you ever develop the allergy, it's a real nightmare.


I wear an 8' scarf, about 10 inches wide, of microfleece material, to prevent these things from happening. I wet it in summer to help with cooling, and can wear a gaiter or balaclava under it in winter. Since wearing it I haven't been stung on/near the neck or down my clothes. :sun:

I tie it loose with a granny knot in front, and then rotate it round my neck so there is a swath of material covering my neck opening, tuck it under my jacket collar and lately I will bring the top up over my chin and fasten my helmetstrap over the scarf. Tidy, and also prevents sun and windburn. :zen:
 
... Those if you that got stung multiple times, are you sure they weren't wasps? Bees just sting once and die. ...

That's what I thought, too, until this summer when I was gonna go in an old shed to look for (some bikey something - some stuff's been there over 18yrs) and noticed a big, fat bumblebee buzzing about near the doorway. That sucker went into the shed and I plainly heard a lot of buzzing going on for a couple of seconds then that *$%^&%& came out WFO and hit me once on the left side of my stomach then, before I could get away - and believe me I was back-pedaling for all I was worth - he hit me twice more on the left side of my back. Dead he was NOT!

There was (/maybe still is) a nest in the wall behind the door facing. I haven't been back out there since. Whatever I was looking for lost importance real quick.
 
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... Those if you that got stung multiple times, are you sure they weren't wasps? Bees just sting once and die. Wasps are jerks and can continue going.

For honey bees you are right. But some bees, such as bumble bees, can sting multiple times.
 
Got stung on the neck once, not sure what it was as it was gone by the time I got stopped. I did get a few of those butterflies that swarmed San Antonio this summer in my helmet, kind of mesmerizing watching the critter flutter around trying to get out!
 
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