At 12:56 AM 7/8/2012, neil n wrote:
>Neil. Who may never have been stung by a bee or wasp.

Heh.  You should get out more.

Bumbleee - fairly calm, mildish sting.  Nest ?individually? in ground.

Honeybee - fairly calm, medium sting, bee leaves stinger in you and
goes off and dies - scrape stinger out carefully to the side so as
not to pump yourself full of venom.  Easiest way to get stung is step
on one or get it caught in your clothes.  Africanized bees are much
more aggressive and will chase you much farther if you disturb the hive.

Wasps and hornets have a binary venom that they combine during the
sting.  More potent.

Mud dauber - fairly calm, strong sting, dark lean wasp body with
distinct waist and long thin wings.  Small mud nests in crevices and
other small places.  Fun to watch them build if you have an afternoon free.

Paper hornet - feisty, similar to mud daubers but striped body,
strong sting, large paper nests (biggest I've seen about 18x18x24
inches in an attic) often hanging from eaves or limbs, beware.

Yellow jacket - quite calm, strong sting, compact with vivid
yellow/black stripes, nest in ground, love sweet stuff and meat, will
land on your lip to nibble your last bite of hamburger.  You can
finger-flick them away without angering them, and you can put a
saucer of jam "over there" to keep them occupied if they're a
nuisance.  On n=1, if you drink a yellow jacket in your beer it will
resent it.*

Giant Japanese bee-murdering hornets aka Yak killers - Two inches
long, carry pruning shears and small heat-seeking missiles. AVOID.  I
don't know how bad their sting is,** but watching one tear into a bee
hive will scare you to death.  Not in the US AFAIK. (google Asian Giant Hornet)

*A few people are allergic to bee and/or wasp venoms.  45 minutes
later this guy's throat closed up and he had to make a rapid trip to
the hospital.

**People in Japan die from it, so it can't be good...

Yours,
David