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A very irritable group of wasps descended on me today and I’m typing with a very swollen & painful left hand and various other swollen painful bits (stings on face, neck, back, hand, arm) so do not expect much response to comments or new posts until this levels out. Usually I’m over a sting in an hour or two but apparently this many makes all of them last longer.
I must be sure to have someone stung in Book V. Having done the research, I should reap the benefit.
Comment by Richard — September 21, 2012 @ 5:17 pm
Assassin bikes can strike anywhere, but … scorpions, heatwaves, wasps … I’m glad I don’t live in Texas.
Comment by Karen — September 21, 2012 @ 6:12 pm
It’s probably not, at this point, an honor to let you know that I -didn’t- quite take your advice.
For my birthday, though, I bought a sparkly green version of the bike I grew up on.
I have no idea if eBay’s description will equal the exquisite balance and flexibility I so clearly remember. I only hope that I can get good tires that fit and breaks that work — and no poisonous invertebrates to poison me in the process of re-learning my balance.
Not that you encouraged me :-D.
I can only hope that you will not have a reaction that goes beyond simple pain. I’m expecting a few more issues (weight, heart-rate, old mechanisms, and even older reactions) to interrupt my training — but the mere hope of riding to church was the tipping point!
Comment by MakingSpace — September 21, 2012 @ 6:44 pm
Arvid Semminson could use some wasp-sting action. Right on the butt.
Comment by elizabeth — September 21, 2012 @ 10:17 pm
The author has anticipated your desire, although not literally.
Comment by elizabeth — September 21, 2012 @ 10:18 pm
Take the tortoise approach to re-training. Avoid irritable wasps.
Comment by David Watson — September 22, 2012 @ 6:38 am
Years ago at the Great Pennsic War (medievalist gathering) the big woods-battle was ended prematurely by someone’s blundering over a hornet’s nest. (not much peripheral vision in some helmets) The hornets cleared much of the wood. Outcome? Battle was judged in favor of the defenders. I can certainly see hornets or wasps as part of the Taig’s defenses.
Aeronaut
Comment by elizabeth — September 22, 2012 @ 6:52 am
David: That’s an interesting idea. Hmm. But would the elves have bred stings out of the wasps in favor of (for instance) variegated colors or fancy antennae? And then the iynisin bred wasps with worse venom? No, because they don’t have the patience for such. And elves would simply make the wasps not sting themselves. So…there’s a “maybe” in that.
Richard: If I could find my mother’s old poetry collection (that I’ve been looking for, for years–I know it was here years back, a fat dark blue book) I could quote you bits out of “Hell in Texas” which listed most of the reasons the Devil annexed the state. Alas, Rick Perry wasn’t born yet when it was written.
Comment by Karen — September 22, 2012 @ 7:19 am
One word for anyone who actually is allergic to wasp venom: hospital.
I’ve been told that my epi-pen (which I carry for bee stings even though it’s been 30 years since I was last stung) only gives me a 15 minute window to seek critical medical aid.
Antihistamines (also in my purse) can extend that window. Staying calm also works wonders, reportedly. Regardless, any major reaction to venom can not only hurt — it can require the attention of a doctor.
Thankfully, our Gracious Hostess has one on call!
Comment by elizabeth — September 22, 2012 @ 8:30 am
Karen: Agree 100% for those with known allergies–carry the epi-pen, and call 911 at once. I didn’t have a doc on call yesterday because he and our son were at a movie, with cell-phones off. I was very glad when he came home and could go buy some antihistamine, because we had none in the house and I did not feel like walking through a hot afternoon to see if the store had some. It will be part of the house kit and my travel kit from now on.
The reactions–painful as they are–have been strictly local–redness and swelling not extending more than a few inches from the sting (though in the case of my left hand, that’s still annoying, as I can’t close my hand without pain from the swelling.) The antihistamine did more in terms of sedation than anything else; I finally took ibuprofen about 10:30 last night and that knocked the pain back enough I could sleep through the night. But until my husband got home, I was keeping a close watch on the extent of the symptoms, in case any signs of systemic response showed up–I’d have called 911 immediately if they had. While in EMS I saw some true anaphylactic responses…scary for all concerned.
Comment by Karen — September 22, 2012 @ 9:16 am
Dearest Hostess,
I had no known allergies when a bee stung my toe and my leg exploded 30+ years ago (the story goes that if the sting hadn’t happened on my toe, I would have been toast).
Every year, I hope that my reaction will have diminshed (I’ve even had shots!). The immune response continues to be virulent, so I take precautions.
I’m only glad that wasp stings have not proven to be your own bete nadir, and that your husband has been able to help you treat them (and, I hope, to also get rid of such an agressive strain of pests!).
Meanwhile, I would like people like me who have crazy-immune responses to realize that an Epi-pen is not a life-saver, but simply a life prolonging instrument.
Comment by carikate — September 22, 2012 @ 10:17 am
M’lady —
Could this (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hell-in-texas/) be the poem that you mentioned?
Comment by Daniel Glover — September 22, 2012 @ 10:51 am
Karen,
My sentiments exactly! My mother had adult onset to seafood. My younger brother had lobster once in college (don’t know how the residence halls afforded that luxury?) and all was fine. Shortly after college went on a “team-building” exercise with his new job and had it again, ended up in ER after his second lobster dinner. He went again the following year to the event, had lobster again, same thing. Before he learned. I stay away from shellfish now since I have a bunch of allergies but not that one (so far).
And to get this back on to wasps in the book–we’ve talked about the singers and unsingers and wasps, but nothing about Master Oakhallow and his ilk letting wasps go “be theirselves” …. 😉
Comment by NancyNew — September 22, 2012 @ 12:19 pm
Back when my kids were little, my daughter stepped on a bee at a neurobiologist friend’s house. She thought a minute and said, “Insect venom is a natural poison. Maybe heat would break it down quickly.”
So we took Katy in and stuck her foot in hot water. It did seem to minimize the pain and swelling.
Comment by Karen — September 22, 2012 @ 2:01 pm
NancyNew,
Another known treatment for biologic toxins is simple meat tenderizer (yeah, the stuff sold for as little as 99 cents in the condiment aisle, containing extracts from papaya and pineapple).
My parents feverishly applied the tenderizer. They also insisted on having me elevate my leg (to the point where it was sticking my dad in the neck every time he turned).
We were, you see, on a family vacation in a place where we had no health insurance.
And, BTW, given such an extreme immune response, meat tenderizer did absolutely nothing.
Comment by elizabeth — September 22, 2012 @ 5:52 pm
Karen: Absolutely. When my friend who had severe allergies used the epi-pen, it just gave us time to get to the ranch and start the IV with a more potent dose, which gave the ambulance (coming from elsewhere) time to get there and then get her into the hospital. For the severely allergic it’s a life-saver in that there’s time for those interventions.
I’m glad the swelling in my hand went down enough that I could take NewBike back to the shop to check out what I’d done to the gears yesterday (the original cause of being in the path of angry wasps) and drive home safely–and then later ride NewBike a little.
Husband collected some of the deceased wasps for me to try to identify with the help of BugGuide.net…I knew they were in the genus _Polistes_, but not which, and I’m still not sure. One I am sure is P. fuscatus, but they’re not all alike–I think the light-fixture nest may have been a different species from the cluster without a nest.
The nest on the front porch, meanwhile, is inhabited by very non-aggressive wasps of a different color (red with black wings.) Even so I find myself much more aware of them than I was before. Funny how that works. Once bit by a hot-wire, you don’t forget where the electric fence is, or fail to notice the sound it makes.
Comment by Karen — September 22, 2012 @ 9:28 pm
May God bless newbike.
She was not, obviously, the reason for new-wasps!
Comment by Richard — September 23, 2012 @ 4:02 am
Elizabeth
is this it?
http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhmahan/poem-txhl.htm
(Google gave several hits – this is just the site it offered first)
Comment by elizabeth — September 23, 2012 @ 5:26 am
Yes! Thank you for finding it.
Comment by Jenn — September 23, 2012 @ 10:33 am
Daniel,
I suppose Paksworld now has not only singers and unsingers but stingers and unstingers!
Comment by Genko — September 23, 2012 @ 5:03 pm
Daniel: THAT was predictable! I kind of thought it, but congratulate you for actually posting it.
Comment by Iphinome — September 23, 2012 @ 6:56 pm
*Awards Jenn the witty comment badge ribbon*
Comment by boballab — September 24, 2012 @ 12:21 am
Besides the bees themselves their honey has also been used before in warfare:
“One of the earliest of these, from the first century B.C., records the misfortunes of a Roman campaign, led by Pompeii the Great, against the Heptakometes in Asia Minor [1]. Interestingly, it is not the bees themselves that are employed in this instance but, rather, their honey. About one thousand of Pompeii’s Roman troops were passing through a narrow mountain pass when they encountered a cache of honey. The soldiers, accustomed to raiding and looting to augment their provisions, halted their advance and eagerly devoured the honey– and soon became afflicted with delirium and violent seizures of vomiting and purges! In such a condition they were easily defeated by the local Heptakomete defenders who took their cue to attack. It seems that the honey had been left in the soldiers’ path not in an act of flight from the advancing forces but as a poisonous bait to stupefy them.
The locals would have been well aware that honey produced during certain times of the year was naturally poisonous. Honey yielded from the nectar of such plants as Rhododendron ponticum and Azalea pontica contain alkaloids that are toxic to humans but harmless to bees. After the offending blooms have stopped flowering, beekeepers in areas where these plants are common (such as the area of present-day Turkey where this incident occurred) routinely remove this toxic honey so it doesn’t contaminate subsequently produced stores. The poisonous honey is then fed back to the bees during time of dearth– if it hasn’t been used first for national defense [2].”
http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/war_bees.htm
There have been many instances where bee hives have been used as catapult ammo but I like the sneakiness of the ancient honey trap!.
Comment by Genko — September 24, 2012 @ 9:31 am
Wow, I never knew honey could be toxic depending on what plants it was made from. I suppose it make sense, but news to me. That is definitely sneaky.
Comment by elizabeth — September 24, 2012 @ 11:45 am
The whole rhododendron/laurel/azalea family produces seriously toxic honey (and yet we can put a bay leaf or two in stew without being harmed); honey from ligustrum (not sure if it’s related) is mildly toxic but a small amount is harmless (I’ve eaten it; our bee hive in San Antonio produced a lot of honey from ligustrum, as it was planted in many yards.) In the Appalachians, there’s a wonderful honey called sourwood honey, but the blooming season of rhododendron and laurel (close relatives) overlaps that of sourwood; beekeepers have to clean out their hives of stored honey immediately after the blooming period of the toxic plants to capture sourwood honey that won’t make people sick. (Learned this from Appalachian beekeeper.) Not surprising that Turkish beekeepers do the same–including feeding it back to the bees in times of dearth.
The toxicity of this honey was reported in literature centuries before the Romans…Xenophon, in his Anabasis, (which, if you haven’t ever read, I strongly urge you to do) writes about a similar use of honey by a mountain tribe along the way of the Greek retreat–and the massacre that followed. Not all the Greeks were incapacitated and they were more desperate than the tribes through whose territory they were marching. Nobody else gave them toxic honey. I’m surprised that a Roman commander would not have been aware of the danger of toxic honey, since Xenophon was fairly well known, and Romans read Greek literature. Then again, some individuals in every place and time are sure they know more than anyone else and ignore past experience.
(Why I think people should read Xenophon’s Anabasis: it”s one of the great military stories of all time. 10,000 Greek mercenaries were trapped in what is now Iraq after their employer was killed in battle. Their commanders–who offered post-battle to take service with the enemy king–were beheaded and the heads sent to convince the rest to accept slavery. Surrounded by a much larger number of enemy troops, they broke out and headed north to the Black Sea where Greek trading colonies existed…harried much of the way by the Persian army and much of the rest of the way by mountain tribes, hunger, cold, snow, storms, etc….and 6000 of them made it there, an incredible survival rate for an overland march through hostile territory without a supply train even in modern times, unheard of then. Granted it’s self-reported, but Xenophon–who had been along on this expedition as an observer–took command when the general who’d invited him was killed, and his speech to the troops that night is–even allowing for self-reporting–one of the great inspiring speeches in history. And it worked. There are other sources for their return, so it wasn’t all made up. This is, by the way, the same Xenophon who, as a boy and youth, shows up in Plato as one of Socrates’ admirers. He was exiled from Athens for a time and it was during this period that he spent in Sparta that he decided to go along for an adventure of the “it will be over by Christmas” sort. Young, brash, but also brave, tough, and competent.)
Comment by elizabeth — September 24, 2012 @ 11:46 am
Jenn: Seconding Iphinome’s award to you for witty commenting.
Comment by Ginny W. — September 24, 2012 @ 4:28 pm
Cold baking soda paste helps to reduce the pain and swelling from bee or wasp stings and also from ant bites (or jelly-fish stings, but those may be rare in your part of Texas). It helps neutralize and draw the toxin. And it is available in most households before and after the emergency room.
I am allergic, so your experience sounds like a nightmare to me. My prognosis for survival of an encounter with more a random stray wasp is not good, even with my epi-pen. I need a companion un-stinger!
Comment by pjm — September 25, 2012 @ 6:23 am
My father-in-law was a bee-keeper in Tasmania. The honeys he preferred were leatherwood (from a native tree) and clover. He told me that at certain times of the year the bees preferred to work onions. The resulting honey while not to my knowledge poisonous, was not really saleable.
Comment by elizabeth — September 25, 2012 @ 7:07 am
pjm: I can see onion honey being a specialty item these days, for chefs who want a hint of carmelized onion in a dish–sort of like balsamic vinegar or fish sauce. It would help if you could easily market it in California…
Comment by Jenn — September 25, 2012 @ 9:30 am
Hmm… Tasmanian onion honey. I can see it in Trader Joes 🙂
When I lived in France there was a couple of beehives a small lavender patch and a tilleul tree. In my free time I would go and sit by the lavender and watch the bees. It was very calming. Of course it helps that I am not allergic.
Comment by JohnMc — September 25, 2012 @ 1:51 pm
I found a site that also has musicfor the earlier mentioned poem http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiHELLTXAS;ttHELLTXAS.html