Hey I hope I didn't say I don't like your posts man. My response in PD Social was meant to be a joke/sarcasm but that might not have come across right through text.
That was what I figured but on the internet where it's hard to tell between ignorance and sarcasm it's hard to know for sure. I started writing a much too long obnoxious response but even for me that was too annoying. So I went with the technical explanation which I figured had the correct ratio of facetious and unneeded educational. If I was offended or decided I didn't like you or you didn't like my writing I wouldn't have started on about the bees.
I've never encountered the red paper wasps, they don't live in my part of the country. They look like a menace. I got curious about where your reds and my yellow jackets, mud wasps, and bald faced hornets rank on the Schmidt Pain Index. 1 is the weakest sting, 4 is the strongest. Nobody wants to give a clear answer, they exaggerate and wax poetic. Make it sound like they're talking about chili peppers instead of venom.
They mention the red paper wasps as potent, the worst ones are Central and South American types. A couple of those types even rank in level 3 territory which ramps up the pain and swelling but especially extends the length of time the pain lasts. There's some controversy over their classification system and whether or not those two species are spread into the USA and how far their range is. It diminishes from the usefulness of the classification system but seems like the worst ones are in Arizona and Texas near the Grand Canyon and the Rio Grande. Along with another group of potent ones near the east coast in the Carolinas and maybe Georgia and Alabama.
No one has really studied this in depth which is surprising but I'd try to avoid those fuckers. Once again wearing dark clothes, strong body odor, perfume, or cigarettes, and getting near the colony are no nos. They seem to be able to dump the poison itself all over their paper nests as an alarm system to send the colony into a blood frenzy. This way multiple wasps will chase you.
Wasps fly very fast and have excellent vision. If they're in good health they can sting you over and over and over. The pheremones in the venom attracts all their friends who enter the same sting crazed frenzy. Only thing you can do at that point is run like hell into a dark part of the forest where they can't see well. Hopefully find some mucky swamp water to jump into so you can pick up a few leeches and maybe add a water moccasin or a couple copperheads to the fun. My guess is you've spent 3 or 4 days with massive swelling along with very uncomfortable pain and puffiness. Hopefully you had a few pain pills, codeine with tylenol would help along with a few histamines to counteract the swelling.
Then you have Apis mellifera, the western honeybee. All our domesticated bees in the Americas and Europe belong to this species. Africa too, the 'Africanized' honey bee is the same type of bee with a few unique traits. They are more aggressive and much more prone to swarming. Otherwise they're the same and pack the same strength of sting. They are (only) level 2 on the Schmidt scale. The reason Africanized are potentially dangerous is because they are aggressive.
In Africa there are a lot of predators that want the sweet. Especially the honey badger. They defend their colony much more vigorously. The queen has much more fecundity. Lays many more eggs than a European queens, including many more young queen causing the hive to swarm early and often. This is problematic because bee keepers want a consistent queen that is not swarm prone. What you want is an European queen with African workers. They will bring in much, much more honey than European workers. They also have greater resistance to disease so they may be the answer to Colony Collapse Disorder. Long live the African Queen!
