From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Mystery Sting?
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 02:15:37 -0400
Message-ID: <kjlsi1dap24kid8n391u07qk95p8nhrl5n@4ax.com>

That sounds like a bald-faced (black and white) hornet.  These things
tend to come in ars-first at high speed and slam into the target. I've
had 'em hit my leather (motorcycle) riding jacket after irritating a
nest.

Once shot the bottom off a nest with a shotgun, then sat there inside
my truck (with the windows tightly up!) and watched 'em dive-bomb the
truck.  Some actually splatted against the glass.  Sounded like hail
on the roof.

You might go back to the area and look overhead for a hornet's nest.
The other possibility might be a wet area where the hornets get the
moisture to make their paper.  You'll see several in the area if
that's the case.

John

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 17:41:19 -0700, "(PeteCresswell)"
<a@b.c.invalid.USA> wrote:

>Was riding my bike.
>
>Had just crossed over 300 feet of open grass on a game trail/walking trail of
>beaten-down grass.
>
>Turned on to a little paved service road, got about 20 feet and bzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ
>BAM!   Something flew up at me from behind at speed, sort of hit the back of my
>head, stung me through a black baseball cap, and flew away.
>
>My first reaction was "Uh-Oh....yellow jackets or wild bees....time to do some
>serious sprinting".     But this thing was solitary.
>
>I've been stung a lot of times, but whatever did it always hung around for at
>least a second or two and nothing ever did the kamikaze thing before...
>
>Anybody have any thoughts on what it might have been?