They are very aggressive right now and it takes a hard frost to kill them for the year. The ground ones are wasps by the way. The search team I am with was on a search and one of the people did the same, and got stung 15 times. The people that were helping her got stung too.
A little info on stinging bees and wasps/hornets; a. bee in and of it’s self is not aggressive and usually you are stung by accident. As a bee has its sting ripped out of its body it will die from the one time. Usually they will sting do to them getting into a sugar product you are eating or drinking. So keep an eye on your soda!
A wasp/hornet does not lose its stinger unless it is swatted at the time it is stinging you and it is pulled out. So they can sting over and over again. They have a bad attitude towards people stepping on or bumping into their nests. They also do not like being swung at either. They need sugar (natural comes from flowers) and like soda, cotton candy and such for that. They have such and attitude about being killed that they put off a chemical when squashed that tells the rest they have been killed and you have a very upset family looking for revenge.
So what can you do? Moving from the area if you get into a nest as quickly as possible is step one. Normally distances of 40-50 feet is far enough but base it on if they are still chasing you. I the case of the person on my team, they were chased about 150 feet and then the ones brushed off kept coming back after them.
Wasp/hornets will crawl into clothing to get to somewhere to sting you. I have seen them go into coats, under shirts and up pants legs.
Ok, step two is to determine if you are going to have a medical problem with being stung. As I am allergic to them, I carry an auto ejector with me. It provides the chemical to protect the airway for a short time, more on that later.
Localized swelling and redness (at the site) is normal, if an say like a hand and the lower arm swells, this getting more serious but staying non-life threaten. A person who is having and allergic reaction can have redness and swelling to the face though they were stung elsewhere on the body. They can start wheezing as the lungs start filling up with fluids and sometimes the airway swells shut.
This is very rare though. A few years ago out at the fair we had a lot of people stung (we lost count at over 1000 people stopping by the medical station) and 3 needed drugs to counter the sting.
A first sting in a persons life is usually not the bad one as it is the one that is making the body sensitive to reacting to the next one unless the person is predisposed.
The current books say a bad reaction will happen sometime in the first 1 hour with the first 20 minutes being critical. I have seen bad reactions up to 24 hours later.
Things like meat tenderizer and chewing tobacco do not help. Remember that the pain is at the sub-dural level not at the skin. I like sting-eaze (my medical team uses it and you can find it in most stores) for local pain and cold such as ice or a really cold soda.
If the person starts having breathing issues, swelling of the face/mouth or sometimes in kid’s hives on the chest/stomach area, this is a true medical emergency; call 911.
Please remember this effects the airway so it is better to have the person checked and not taken to the hospital then not breathing waiting on the rig. If you are trained in CPR, assisted ventilations by providing mouth to mask assistance is indicated.
The Auto-injector is used on the back of the thigh, as the neadle is almost 1.5 inches long; they need to hold it in the leg for 10 seconds when they give themselves the shot
A little long winded, but I have seen huge numbers of people stung and have told people this many times, Safe caching.