Scary! I know I don't have to tell you that if you have an breathing issues to seek medical attention immediately so I'll just say please give us an up date.

I'm fine, I did take a puff of my inhaler just to be on the safe side. I'm a nurse, so I understand anaphylaxis and was worried for a bit since I was a good 15 minute walk from home. But I think I was just freaked out.

Eek! Were do you live. We don't have them yet, but heard they are nasty. I hoping the cold winters keeps them away from us. Sometimes our bees get aggressive in the fall. They become overly protective of their hives because they are preparing the queen for the winter. Now wasps don't need any excuse to attack. They are just nuts.

I am glad you are OK. You might avoid that route for the next few days.

I'm glad your alright and the pups are unharmed! That sting has got to hurt tho...

At our last house, the neighbor had a "very active", regular bee hive she put on the roof of her garage. I was stung by one a week before we moved out. My wrist swelled up for a week!

I was attacked by wasps or hornets once. I was working on a planting bed in my front yard - weeding, deadheading, etc. - and inadvertantly disturbed a nest. Unbeknownst to me, they had taken up residence in a birdhouse on a pole in the center of the bed and were not well pleased about me messing about in 'their' territory! My head was the first thing they encountered when they came flying out and they got me multiple times. Yowzaa!! Did that hurt!! I was flailing my arms and leaping around like a crazy person - I'm sure I gave my neighbors quite a show. My scalp felt like it was on fire and I quickly developed a screaming headache.

I went inside, took some ibuprofen (I have no known allergies) and laid down, trying to decide if I needed to call 911. And it got better! Took awhile, though, and I was definitely done with my gardening for the day.

I got even. The next day the birdhouse was thoroughly doused with wasp killer. The kind where you can stand at a distance and the spray shoots out :-)

Must have been stung a dozen times or more. It was an experience I will never forget.

Whoa, Gardengal, that sounds terrifying. That's what I looked like, hopping and jumping and sticking my hands down my pants. Must have looked pretty comical.

I live in Wisconsin, function, and I have heard of people being killed by mass attacks in this state even though we have really cold winters.

Rhizo, it was definitely a bee that I saw on my dog's leg. Whatever the heck it was, it terrified me and my butt is still stinging.

Yikes!!!! Hope you're not hurting to badly!

Who do you report stuff like that to? The health dept?

That is scary! I always thought bees can sting only once. Husband was stung 5 times by paper wasps a few months ago and developed very red, itchy palms and the sting sites swelled up a lot. Thank goodness no respiratory reaction though. I gave him benedryl and he was back to normal after a little while, but the sting sites were swollen and painful for a few days. I made him go to the allergist for testing and he has a mild sensitivity to vespids so he has to try to avoid all wasp encounters.

I saw this this other day. Not sure any of these really match your ‘gray’ bee but it’s still informative. Sorry if some of the language at the beginning offends. But read the comments below for the real truth.

https://kottke.org/18/08/a-comprehensive-guide-to-yellow-stripey-things

My understanding is an Africanized bee will travel as a loner, more so than a honeybee. They are similar in appearance but there are some differences in the striping iirc if you get close enough to see it.

Freaking out can actually help in an asthma situation, right? If you are so hyped up that you have an adrenaline release, that can help lessen the asthma.

Bees do generally only sting once. Not discounting that it could have been some strange type of bee but it also sounds like a type of fly that we have in this area that loves to bite and will try to repeatedly land and bite. There are two kinds, deer and horse flies. They leave a round mark at the bite area.

mathias, freaking out does NOT help me when having an asthma attack, just the opposite.

I remembered that you had a medical background so I knew you were aware of anaphylactic.........just a gentle reminder. :-))) Glad you're feeling better and puppy is okay.

So glad that you and your pups are all right are not allergic and you only found one puncture wound.

The last time I got stung by a bee at my sister's place I was in quite a bit of pain. I put on some topical stuff and that helped a lot. Sure as heck didn't like the pain though.

Too much exposure to bee stings Etc can make you allergic so hopefully this is your last encounter for a long time.

They are do request that you report any encounter of Africanized bees. I don't know who you tell but I know they want to know whoever they are.

had encounter with wasps several summers ago. never noticed a grapefruit sized nest about face level on a tree branch. when i brushed the low branch out of my way, all hell broke loose. immediately had dozens on me. they were going for my face and hands... makes perfect sense. blind your enemy and take away their ability to fight back. i ended up with 10-12 stings on my right arm from swinging at the nasty things.

I do have wonder if it was perhaps a deer or horse fly. They can sometime look like the common honey bee. Sleeperblues, did the insect look like this? You mentioned it was grey. I've been "attacked" by these when running in wooded areas. hamatabanus-carolinensis080709-5178facez.jpg

It sounds like a hornet to me.

Sounds terrible! Sorry you had such a frightening experience.

We were out clearing brush and thinning trees a couple of months ago when hubby got into a nest. I was standing a few feet away and as soon as I saw the little suckers come charging from underground, I ran. They went after hubby and he was stung five times on his head and arms.

We knew that was the end of the clearing/thinning for that day, but they wouldn't let us near our truck, so we walked home and went back for the truck later after they'd settled down.

• Scary! Glad you and the dogs are okay. Just this week I took af walk with my daughter and three year old grand-daughter to our local ice cream store. we sat down at an outdoor picnic table with our treats, A bee attacked me first. i stood up and swatted at it, then it went for my grand. My daughter got it off her, then it flew to another table and went after another group of people. very aggressive! (it was a "yellowjacket").

I've been attacked by yellow jackets and they are nasty and aggressive. They are not bees, they are wasps. Ordinarily (not the africanized ones) bees are very gentle, they really have to be provoked in order to decide to sting.

Slightly OT - my DH was working on our fence last week and put his knee down onto a red ant nest. He thought the irritation he was feeling was twigs or mulch until it really started to hurt. He ended up with about 20 painful bites on his knee and leg. They quickly became swollen (like hives). He took Benadryl and applied ice and topical analgesics. The bite areas eventually formed "heads" which broke open. The part that surprised us the most was that his whole leg was about 50% larger than the other one for about a week.

Nope, it wasn't a deer fly. We have plenty of those around here, and while annoying they have never "attacked" me like this creature did. It looked like a bumblebee. Interesting link, OutsidePlaying, thank you. So it appears bumblebees can sting more than once. I know it stung me, it was a burning pain and a red welt with a hole in the middle of the sting. It attacked the big dog, but I don't think it stung him. He acted perfectly normally once we got home.

HONEY (hybrid or European) bees can only sting once; there are many other types of bees in this country and some of them will sting repeatedly, since their stingers aren't barbed. Bumblebees are a perfect example of bees that don't die when they sting and they can have a grouchy reputation.

I suspect your attacker was a bald faced hornet. They are larger than honey bees or yellow jackets and extremely aggressive. They look most like a bumblebee. There are also hornets that look like honey bees on steroids. Bumblebees are placid creatures that need a lot of inducing to attack someone. Any of the hornet clan are aggressive from the git go. They can sting multiple times and do. They are territorial when they start building their nest but that phase is short lived. I'd avoid the area for a couple of weeks to be safe.

I've never known bumblebees to be anything other than very placid creatures :-) LIke honey bees, they tend not to bother you uness you bother them. I have even had then crawling on me when working outside and never had an issue with them.

But I was stung by a big bumble recently! He apparently got tangled up in the jacket I was wearing tied around my waist and couldn't get out so stung me on my inner thigh. It just stung a bit but nothing like the stings I experienced from the wasps!

I have been stung numerous times in my life from bee-like creatures but typically only when they have been interrupted in their activities or trapped (stepped on, trapped in my boot or jacket, etc.). But the only actual "attack" was by the wasps - nasty, aggressive creatures!!

Fortunately, I have never had any sort of reaction to these stings so far.

My scariest experience with stinging insects was an encounter with fire ants, of all things. My (ex) husband and I were driving to a holiday party one evening in December. It was dark and warm in the Lowcountry of SC, and we got a flat tire. We pulled over on the weedy shoulder and proceeded to get to work on the tire.

About three minutes in, I felt one sharp stab on the nape of my neck.....and then I knew that I was covered with ants. It's true what they say about them, that they will wait until there's a hoard present before stinging all at once.

We went to the ER instead of a party. I was not allergic to fire ant stings, but had received close to 100 and had no idea how I would react to that!

Nope, not a bald faced hornet. It looked exactly like a bumble bee except it was grey and black instead of yellow and black.

Rhizo, the same thing happened to my Mom when my sister lived in Georgia. She decided to go out and work in my sister's garden, and got attacked and stung by fire ants. She got severely stung by many, many ants. We are from northern climes, and she had never seen (or felt) these evil creatures!!

OMG, that does sound scary. I have never heard of being stung just randomly like that, wow. I would be pretty shook up too! Glad you and your dogs are ok though (if getting stung still falls under being ok).

sleeperblues, do you have a county extension office you could report it too? (Your local library might have a contact number.) The extension office might know if there have been similar attacks, and/or what the insect was, etc. If it's a new pest in your area, they might be tracking its spread.

It was likely something in the wasp family based on your report that one insect made multiple stings, Bees can only sting once leaving their stinger in the victim whereas a wasp can do multiple stings until it runs out of venom. Your insect may have been a yellow jacket. Stepping on their nest can incite an attack. They build their nests in the ground or in hollows of downed logs.

After reading your post, I did a little reading on this and it seems that some of the bees will get aggresive if you are too close to a hive, especially a new one. The carpenter bee has the coloring you describe and is like that, but the bee you were thinking of is the one that chases like that one did to you. They typically do it in swarms so if it really was a killer bee, then thank god it was only one.

Before even thinking of killer bees first find out what state the attack was located in then you can rule out or confirm if it could be one of the killer bees or other insects.

Frightening indeed--thank heavens it was just one! Glad you're okay. Hard to imagine a bumblebee doing this . . . I used to impress my kids by petting them. My family has been plagued by yellowjackets this summer--so aggressive!--but they're definitely yellow. Nickel's suggestion to contact your county extension office is a good one.

I remember when I was a kid....visiting some friends who had a ranch. There was a boy about my age, and his job was to drive the pickup out to where his dad was mowing in a pasture, and take him water or pick him up at lunch time and drive him back to the house. We were about 12 years old, but he could drive the truck, and, anyway, he didn't have to get on the road to do this. So we took some cold water out to his dad.

About the time we showed up, his dad ran over a bumble bee nest. They nest in the ground, and they were flying everywhere. The tractor was sitting right on top of it. His dad quickly put a tow chain on it and jumped back in the truck. Then he realized, he had forgotten to put the tractor in gear. So he told his son to get out and do it. I remember how . the kid complained, but he did it, and jumped back in the truck, and the dad was able to pull the tractor off quite some distance away. No one got stung, and the bees were flying all around, so I guess they aren't as aggressive as wasps, etc.

I saw a gray bee like a bumble bee the other day. I decided to look it up. Descriptions comes back to an imported bee called a Russian bee. Here is a link about them, and the next link is pictures. Is this what stung you?

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/the-different-types-of-honey-bees  

https://www.google.com/search?ei=q7KCW86APeaIggfomL6oDQ&q=Russian+bee+picture&oq=Russian+bee+picture&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i30k1l2.20111.25497.0.26199.19.19.0.0.0.0.154.1754.11j7.18.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.18.1739...0j0i131k1j0i67k1j0i131i67k1j0i10k1j0i8i13i30k1.0.50_560b0dLI

I will contact the county extension on Monday, great idea! Cat, that might be it. But my recollection was that it looked like one of those cute, fluffy bumblebees that are so friendly (but this one was not). Of course, I was screaming and contorting and ripping my clothes off with my hand down the back of my leggings terrified that there was one down there, all the while trying to hang on to the dogs and protect the poodle that was getting attacked. So my memory is probably not what I think it is. Probably quite a comical site to anyone watching, but it was eerily quiet on this lovely Friday evening.

OutsidePlaying: A couple of the captions in that infographic (posted below for the sake of convenience) you linked to made me chuckle — especially the last line of each:

Bumblebee

-also pollinates stuff very well

-so fat it shouldn’t be able to fly

-will let you pet it without getting agitated

-actually a flying panda

Yellow Jacket

-wants your food and will fight you for it

-never leaves you alone

-will sting you just for the hell of it

-is just an asshole

From A comprehensive guide to Yellow Stripey Things

are there houses near where you were stung? I't might be a good idea to alert anyone living near there. And definitely report it to the extension office.

Finding out what is was is a great idea. I have spent a lot of time this Summer taking pictures of insects in my yard and trying to identify them. Unless you find out it is something dangerous or invasive, I would not knock on neighbors doors to tell them that I have been stung by a bee. In my rural neighborhood they would think I am crazy. Two years ago we had a skunk with rabies in the neighborhood. It was very much appreciated to be informed about that since it might be a danger to my dogs or myself.

I wonder if it might have been carpenter bees, which look quite a bit like bumble bees, although less fuzzy. The females can sting and will but usually only with some provocation, the males will aggressively defend their territory, dive bombing and chasing, especially if you make a commotion, however the males cannot sting, its all a big bluff.

That sort of fits your description, but it sounds like it started with an unprovoked attack with a sting, which would be unusual for carpenter bees. Maybe your dogs "provoked" the attack by peeing on something that happened to be their nest.

Iris, my suggestion was given because I am allergic. If there is a family very near a nest, which may not be visible, as one in the ground would not be, I wouldn't want them stung because they didn't know it was there. If it's a very rural area, then no, probably not. We have a couple of neighbors who walk across our yard to get to our front door. (No sidewalks, and not city) We discovered a ground nest near our front flower bed. Yes, we let them know it was there so they wouldn't be stung before we could take care of the problem.