Call them ground bees, yelow jackets, wasps, whatever. But has anybody noticed an unbelievable number this year?

Usually at my course I have to kill 1 or 2 nests a year so people don't get stung. This year I've killed 10 or 15 nests and I'm going to kill 2 more today, and each nest has a huge number of wasps, maybe 1000 each. I've been stung 6 times this year, and one of those times I got stung by 11 wasps and had to go to the hospital.

This is sick. It's like a space invasion. Every fairway had a nest and one had 3 nests. You are afraid to step for fear you might step on a nest, it's like land mines.

Other people are saying it's a wasp plague this fall. They are having this problem from England http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3552080.stm to Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/canberra/stories/s1324967.htm

Other people notice this?

I was stung more this summer than I have been in my whole life. I think maybe 6 or 7 times.

I have only been stung 2 times this year. Luckily they were both during big Tourney's

I've been stung twice this year. This doubles my count for my lifetime.

I saw a cicada killer this year at Hudson Mills, and then again at USADGC. I have never before seen anything like it, and hope never to see one again. This one looks much smaller than the wasp I saw, it was at least 2" long and as thick as a sharpie. It couldn't fly, either it's wings were wet or it's body was too big for its wings. Mutant!
http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/bigfingerperch.jpg

Maybe that is what stung me at Am Nats. For the first time ever I had a bee sting swell really bad. The bee sting scar is still there. :confused:

Interesting that you mention this phenomena. I have insect duty here in Charlotte and I have had at least four times the number of yellowjacket and hornet nests to destroy than any other year. The yellowjackets have been especially rampant. I can think of 6 hornet's nests and 5 yellowjacket nests. I was only stung once this year in my "keep the courses safe" campaign.

This phenomenon is all over the world and nobody knows what is causing it. All the insect experts can't figure it out. They have no clue.

a handful of yellow jackets taste like chicken

Go Jackets! (http://ramblinwreck.collegesports.com/)

I haven't noticed that many more yellow jackets, but around here there is a lot more bees(not a bug guy, can't tell ya what kind) than ever before. I'm about the only one I know that isn't deathly allergic to them.

Well, if you get stung by a yellow jacket you will know the difference. For one, they sting repeatedly, also they hurt alot more.My husband got stung by one twice in a tournament, and his ankle was quite swollen(twice it's original size) for three or four days after.

Yellow jackets (wasps) have no hair. Bees are hairy. It's easy to tell the difference. Honey bees are not native to North America, they were imported from Europe and went wild and they are pretty rare in the wild, they are mostly in bee keepers places. Almost all the stinging bugs you see are wasps not bees but the rednecks around here call them bees because they are stupid. Why are rednecks so stupid? That's just about everybody up here. Friggin stupid rednecks. They see a yellow jacket and call it a bee. Idiots. Bees make honey and live in hives in trees. Yellow jackets live in the ground. Morons.

Yellow jackets are Vespa Vulgaris which is Latin for "common wasp."