Got lit up in a big way by wasps for the first time Saturday. Had one or two stings a few times over the years but this was my first swarm attack by any sort of stinging insect in that order. I was working on a semi-rural house in Orinda. It's up a steep and not short driveway. The fools who plumbed it way back when didn't put a shut off valve up where the pipe enters the house, so to replace some supply valves I had to turn it off at the meter on the street, which is another not short walk uphill from the bottom of the driveway.
The lot is sort of triangular, at the end of the house I was working on it's quite close to the shutoff, just down a rugged set of switchbacks not used too often. But it sort of looked like a trail and their was a gap in the fence right there. Much vegetation and I had to snake under a pipe.
But down I go and in no time felt a stinging on my ear. Then one on my hand, and I'm thinking, nettles, poison oak? I couldn't yet see or hear wasps. Then it became clear as a bunch were just all around me. I still had a bit of a scramble down to the street, made it as quick as I could and began moving quickly away, killing wasps for all I was worth the whole time. They were going for my ears, scalp, neck, hands and wrists. I was rubbing my hands furiously over my scalp, ears, and neck, alternated with swatting them on my hands and wrist.
These suckers would not give up. 50 yards away a few were still trying to get in. One that I rubbed off was still moving on the street, I stepped on it lightly as I didn't want to crush it. When I finally killed or chased off the last of them I scooped that one up:
Definitely a yellow jacket. I must have stepped on the entrance to a large nest. Very little foot traffic there. Probably well established.
Not an experience I'll soon forget. The experience of stings coming faster than I could hope to respond to with swatting was some freaky stuff, I don't mind telling you. My scalp, ears, hands and forearms were all painful and itchy. Still itchy 2 days later. I've read of much worse attacks. Rough guess mine was maybe a 3 or 4 on the one to ten scale.
The weird thing was I had a hard time relaxing for maybe 30 minutes after. I kept thinking I could feel one settling in.