Ouch! wasp on my index finger

**JEStanek** · Jul-15-2008, 5:13pm

While my circumstances may be somewhat unique (I got stung on the neck and left index finger on my car ride home by a wasp), how many of you guys have picked up a sting on a fretting or picking finger? Boy, for about 15 minutes it felt like a good hammer blow. Now it's just all swollen. I feel like I should play this tonight...

The Rigel Killer Bee!

Jamie

**Jim Broyles** · Jul-15-2008, 5:17pm

Guess you'll have to learn some of those Gordon Sumner songs now.

**JEStanek** · Jul-15-2008, 5:20pm

For a few minutes Every Breath I Took was followed by an expletive!

Jamie

**Jim MacDaniel** · Jul-15-2008, 5:29pm

I've severed flexor tendons in my left pinky before (repaired successful after three surgeries), but never stung or bittten on a finger. However, I have been stung in the neck by a honeybee while driving, so I think I can guess the sequence of events: you were driving with the window down, the wasp was blown in, and trapped between your collar and left side of your neck, it stung you. After swearing loudly and nearly swerving off the road, you reached up instinctively to your neck, where the trapped wasp then stung you on the left finger while you were reaching for it. After some more swerving, accompanied by additonal colorful language, you freed the wasp by shaking and pulling on your shirt collar.

**JEStanek** · Jul-15-2008, 5:36pm

Pretty close. I was riding shotgun with a carpool buddy. Left side of neck, stung, pinched out the wasp, stung. Found it on my pants leg and flicked the sonofagun out the window. It's a funny story... You'll have to imagine me doing the funky chicken, hooting and hollering as it all went down. I'll take the sting over severed tendons or luthiery related injuries any day.

Anyone else been stung on the finger?

Jamie

**Tracy Tucker** · Jul-15-2008, 6:10pm

Numerous times, but not since I've taken up the mandolin. I grew up a country girl and worked on a dairy farm in high school... barns = plenty of sites for wasps!

**Rick Lindstrom** · Jul-15-2008, 6:36pm

Well- I was riding my bicycle one day and a wasp or hornet got caught behind my glasses- it stung me between the eyes before I could get it out. Talk about a headache...

I've also known more than one female cyclist that had a bee or wasp fly into the cleavage area and sting them in tender places- sort of militates for keeping those jerseys zipped up.

Anyway, be glad it was just a finger.

Rick

**Mikey G** · Jul-15-2008, 10:18pm

We were playing at the Fall Homecoming in Norris, Tn. three or four years ago, and right before we went on stage, I felt a stinging sensation on my left hand, looked down and a yellow jacket was hanging by the stinger in the top of my hand. By the time they changed microphones around and did introductions, my hand hand was so swollen I couldn't see any tendons, veins, nothing! My hand was about double its size. We had another set the following morning and it was so stiff and swollen that I could barely hold the mandolin, or get my hand around the neck. That's pretty bad when playing a mandolin. As I look at my hand, I still have a scar there where the yellow jacket stung me. The sting hurt so bad that at first I thought someone had burned me with a cigarette.

**man dough nollij** · Jul-15-2008, 10:39pm

One time I was working in the field for the phone company. I had my phone hooked up in a box, and had been put on hold by some dispatcher. I felt a pinch on my leg, then another, then another, going higher. Turns out I had been standing on a fire ant hill, and they had been crawling up my pants as I stood there on hold. I had to run behind the closure and drop my drawers to get the nasty little buggers out. It was literally like having about 25 wasp stings all over my legs. (Thank God none of them got past thigh high before I could get 'em out of my pants!) Each bite was the size of a quarter, extremely itchy and painful for weeks. Yow!

Mando content: Anyone have tabs for "Fire ants on the mountain"?

**sbarnes** · Jul-15-2008, 11:14pm

got into a yellow jacket nest while weedeating.....got popped a few times on the legs, head, etc....but i raked my hand across my hair and got stung again on the finger....all of them hurt but most of 'em hurt a while and quit....the one on my finger throbbed like somebody was pounding it w/a hammer all night.....

**Ken Olmstead** · Jul-16-2008, 12:09am

Swollen finger? That's great! More surface area to cover fretting 2 strings at once! You own some of those uniquely fretted chords my friend! Act fast, for a limited time only!

(just ignore the pain!)

I was stung 25 times after a friend stepped in a nest. I consider myself lucky though, he got stung over 100 times and now is quite allergic!

**allenhopkins** · Jul-16-2008, 12:24am

Yellowjacket went down my shirt when playing for the Agricultural Fair at Genesee Country Village, stung me on the chest; I got the shirt off ASAP, flicked the li'l bandit off, couldn't see where it went, found it wounded inside my Washburn bowl-back mandola. I shook the Washburn until the wasp fell out, spotted it on the ground, crushed it. Revenge!!

Late in the summer and early fall, yellowjackets unfortunately become quite gregarious, won't leave anyone alone. I caution my fellow (female) musicians not to wear scent, since I've seen the wasps constantly hanging around the heads of women wearing hairspray, scented cosmetics, etc. Anyway, they didn't have hairspray in the 19th Century...

**sunburst** · Jul-16-2008, 1:05am

man dough nollij, this story has to be heard from the source to be as funny as it was when I heard it, but here's the short, second hand version.
A friend of mine used to work for the phone company. He entered a yard and saw a Doberman tied to a tree in the center of the yard, not a barking snarling Doberman, but a quiet watchful one. He got his dog stick out of the truck, checked the length of the dog's chain, and headed across the yard to the telephone box on the wall of the house. There was a wheelbarrow leaning against the wall over the phone box and when he moved it a huge nest of wasps swarmed out from under it. He said he turned and ran right over the dog (almost). Scared the dog worse than it scared him!

**Oliver R** · Jul-16-2008, 3:51am

Ok, How's this for horror?
I took a carton of orange juice from a very cold fridge.
Took a huge mouthful of juice from the carton like a slob and got what I thaught was a piece of ice or semi frozen juice stuck in my throat.
Tried to swallow it but failed and coughed it back out.
It was a living wasp (momentarily) and the little Sh**e had stung me twice on the inside of my throat.
Rush to hospital, massive anti histermine injection.
Bummer!

**F5GRun** · Jul-16-2008, 4:11am

Yup, ive been stung in the soft part of the hand between your thumb and index finger right where the neck would rest in my left hand. It was not fun. Only affected my playing for a day or so, but then again it wasnt a wasp just a honey bee.

**tree** · Jul-16-2008, 9:18am

I got stung on my right elbow (picking arm) 2 days ago. #Yesterday it itched like the dickens, but it hasn't hurt my pickin', as far as I can tell. #Probably not much to hurt there.

**Celtic Saguaro** · Jul-16-2008, 9:31am

I cut my right index finger fairly badly at work a number of years ago. I played for several months with the pick between my thumb and middle finger. I've had plenty of wasp stings, but fortunately never on the fingers.

**Santiago** · Jul-16-2008, 9:41am

When I was four years old I went to pick the "rock" out of the bush. Luckily I don't share my late mother's extreme sting allergies. Yellerjackets stung me all over the place, including twice on my middle finger. People said my finger looked like Fred Flintstone's. Didn't cheer me up, but did wise me up.

**Dalton Maples** · Jul-16-2008, 9:42am

While living in Alaska and using the weed eater. Noticed in my peripheral vision a sudden moving cloud. I must have hit a yellow jacket nest in the weeds. Dropped the weed eater and was gone. A few did catch me.....the worst was one in the top of the head. Headache was pretty good and had a tender bump on the top of my head for a week after the other sting sites were gone.

**chordbanger** · Jul-16-2008, 9:55am

I just got out of my bathtub because as I was enjoying a luxurious bubble bath, a wasp flew into the bath water. I got out of there quick! I am so glad that I did not get stung where the sun doesn't shine! How would I explain that one?

**Clif Wayland** · Jul-16-2008, 10:08am

A couple of years ago at our local village festival. I went to take my first bite out of a brat smothered in chopped onions. It felt like an onion was alive! Then something pounded a nail from inside my mouth up through my skull. I spit my mouthfull out on the ground and after a few more tries, out came a yellow jacket. I did a little jig on it's body and sang a colorfull song to go with it.
I had a headache and a woozy stomach for a couple of hours, but thats about as long as it bothered me.
Took quite a while before I was ready for another brat though!
Clif

**bbjockey** · Jul-16-2008, 10:25am

Here is a tip that works to reduce the effects of a wasp or bee sting: ASAP after being stung put tobacco on the sting for several minutes. I am a smokeless tobacco user and have applied my dip to many stings. Wetting the sting and placing cigarette tobacco on it will also work. Something in the tobacco eliminates the pain and will reduce, not eliminate, the swelling.

**Brandon Flynn** · Jul-16-2008, 10:27am

Originally Posted by (Oliver R @ July 16 2008, 04:51)

Ok, How's this for horror?
I took a carton of orange juice from a very cold fridge.
Took a huge mouthful of juice from the carton like a slob and got what I thaught was a piece of ice or semi frozen juice stuck in my throat.
Tried to swallow it but failed and coughed it back out.
It was a living wasp (momentarily) and the little Sh**e had stung me twice on the inside of my throat.
Rush to hospital, massive anti histermine injection.
Bummer!

I think your story is the worst. I think we can all agree wasps are one of the worst pests that exist. What sucks is that they are more active during the middle of the day, when people are likely to be outside. I'd rather get bitten by many things with teeth than get stung by a few wasps or bitten by a few fire ants. It hurts and it is annoying.

**Santiago** · Jul-16-2008, 10:31am

Basic rule of thumb: Don't anger the bees. Stuff still happens of course, but less.

**Jim Rowland** · Jul-16-2008, 10:41am

Mowed over a ground nest a few years ago and the critters went into attack mode and started stinging all targets of opportunity. Ran for the front door in a real panic...Locked!...ran to the back,tried to vault the fence..ripped my pants and gashed my leg..ran into the house babbling and ripping off my clothes. Wife was calm and began mixing a soda and water paste,speaking soothing words with intimations that I might be a bit more of an adult..until two wasps flew out of my discarded shirt and stung her on the mouth and cheek..abandoned her cool attitude and joined in the cussing. My fault,of course for bringing danger into our abode. I sat for hours in my little library..hurting. My misery was interrupted intermittently by my mother-in-law peeking around the door and saying "are you feeling better? heh heh". 17 stings on my face,neck,arms and chest. I am more careful now.
Jim