Gee, thanks guys! I appreciate all your replies. At this point, I realize that this has become a phobia for me & that as organica pointed out, chances are that I probably won't be stung again. But I can't remember a year when it was as bad as it is right now here. Of course, we live out in the country & this comes along with all the beautiful views & clean air. It's just something we have to put up with, or go back to the concrete jungle. Still, with global warming & the increase of CO2 in our atmosphere, this may just be another symptom of our sick planet. I know the poison ivy around here has gone NUTS this year due to this & probably the fireblight on my 2 pear trees, too. But I'm still looking for things that I can do to tip the balance in my favor. This is what I've found so far: probably nothing can be "done" to change anything until the first freeze, so going out at sunset, as fishymamas (love that name!) suggested is what I have been doing. Also, if you put out traps in the spring (which you can make yourself with plastic soda bottles), you may get the queen & avoid a major nest being built nearby & giving you problems later in the summer. I might try that one. Lilacs in may (& others): if you have a known sensitivity to bug bites, you may want to consult your doctor for a presciption for an Epi-Pen, an self-injectable dose of epinephrine to keep in your refrigerator just in case you have a major allegeric meltdown from a sting & can't get help in time. It just might save your life. Hottomato: I actually do have some Avon Skin So Soft -- the old kind -- but I didn't think to use it because I had read that it really didn't have any ingredients to repel pests. Also, you're not supposed to wear any sweet-smelling perfume because that's a turn-on to these creatures as well. But reading the labels on the DEET & Picardin products say that they repel mostly mosquitos, ticks, fleas, deer flies -- nothing about wasps, hornets, yellow jackets or bees. So there you are. I still think going out at sunset is my best bet. Finally, Ruthieg & gonefishin, I've seen those big banana-colored spiders in our family gardens for most of my life & I just tend to steer clear of them & peacefully co-exist (can't we all just get along??). Of course, spiders, wasps, hornets, etc. -- all these critters are doing us a favor by eating mosquitos & other tiny pests, so we owe them our gratitude rather than our fear. I know that rationally, but it's still going to be a while before I venture outdoors unafraid. Anyway, thanks for ALL of your comments & ideas & moral support. I appreciate it! Laurene

I tried most remedies, but nothing seemed to work. After 6 hours of still experiencing the sting, trying to ignore the pain, I began to read about my recent purchase of ecloths. Zappo. A light bulb went off! I rubbed an ecloth over my fingers about 20 times, then repeated this. The sting disappeared nearly instantaneously! Note that an ecloth is not the same as a microfiber cloth.

Bees die after they sting you. Wasps, the Yellow Jackets, do not and one can sting you multiple times and they release a pheromone when they do sting you that alerts oter wasps in the area that one of their own is under attack, by you, come and help. Bees will seldom sting because they are more interested in gathering the nectar and bringing it back to the nest. I have been stung by bumblebees, twice when that bee flew into a door I had just opened, apparently in its flight path and it fell onto my arm and stung me, and once more when one flew up my pant leg and could not find its way out. Otherwise I have been out cutting down flowering buckwheat, asters, and many other flowering plants loaded with nectar gathering bees and they have not bothered me. I have also been out mowing when the White Dutch Clover in the lawn is in bloom and bees were working those blossoms and they simply move to other blossoms and have never stung me because I was mowing, but I have had Yellow Jackets sting me while I was mowing, apparently because they thought I got too close to their home, or maybe just because.

The trouble with tribbles! This has been identified on bugguide.net (use the google cached page, not the current search result for "mexican olive tree") as a larva of Physonota alutacea, a chrysomelid leaf beetle.