Another Use For My Flamethrower…

Yellow jackets are mean, nasty, and have no place on this planet. My flamethrower helped make the planet, or at least my backyard, a little safer.

I was walking through my some tall grass in my backyard on a fine summer day. As I took a step, I felt an intense pain in my right leg. It was a sharp burning pain that dropped me where I stood. After cussing loudly for a few minutes, I looked at my leg and saw blood running down with growing swelling. My leg hurt from my knee to my ankle. and I could barely walk.

I first thought I was once again the victim of a spider attack (see one of my older posts, Spiderman Was a Lie), but this was different. Rather than the typical dual hole spider bite, I had multiple. All I knew for sure was something got me and it was a pain like I’ve never felt before.

I didn’t see what got me, so I went about my life, figuring I would never know what caused my pain. Then came a revelation. I was mowing the grass a couple weeks later when I saw what looked like a bunch of bees flying up from a hole in the ground. I realized this was the spot where my ruthless attack occurred. I must have lived a pretty sheltered life because I’ve never seen bees flying into a hole in the ground.

I quickly went to the internet and found they were yellow jackets.

I then researched their sting and found they don’t leave a stinger like a regular bee – they can just sting over and over. I looked up some images of injuries caused by them and found they looked just like what I had. I also found they can be deadly.

My dog plays in the yard, as do I. This was not cool.

There was only one solution to get rid of them.

FLAMETHROWER

A while back I wrote post about a fun, yet practical toy I purchased (Flamethrowers…The Thing You Never Knew You Needed). What seemed like a silly purchase at the time proved to be quite useful in many ways, including handling my issue on this occasion. Rather than dangerous pesticides, I figured torching the hole they were flying out of would effectively rid them so I filled the hole with fire for a good 30 seconds. I paused, watching a few of them frantically flying around to the hole. Once again, I let loose another burst of fire, then another, and another. I was even taking down some of them in the air.

It was quite satisfying.

The neighbors probably found my behavior a bit odd, but they didn’t have to endure the pain that I did which caused me to partake in such vengeance. Had they gotten stung, and if they had access to the same appliance I did, I think any logical (or illogical) person would have done the same thing without hesitation.

Before someone out in the world accuses me of being cruel to nature, yellow jackets serve absolutely no purpose in nature other than to attack people and animals. They are not pollinators, they don’t make honey, and as mentioned previously, they are mean, nasty, and highly aggressive.

The fire proved effective as I never saw another all summer long.

Hopefully they put the word out to their friends before I cooked them that a psycho guy with a flamethrower was looking for them.

Regardless, it was a cost effective solution (it worked MUCH better than I expected), but the pain of the stings lasted at least a month from the attack.

If they come back, I’m ready.

~ Marty ~

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