The end of innocence comes in many forms. It could be the first time you heard your dad say an obscene word. Maybe it was the time when your best friend moved to another city and you were the only kid on the block who lost something you really cared about.

It could be the time you were messing around in the backyard, barefooted, and stepped on a bumblebee that stung the living bejesus out of your tender toe.

That was an object lesson in the discovery of a stinging insect. After that, you watched where you walked, always wearing shoes.

It’s Not Funny

More than a half-million people are rushed to the emergency ward every year because a hornet, wasp, yellow jacket, fire ant or bee who has decided to stick it to you. And with spring and summer on the way, these unintentionally nasty critters are about to come out of hiding. They feel threatened or are just plain mean, but their bite can cause an allergic reaction to make you think about becoming a bubble boy until the first freeze of autumn.

Precaution Policies

While they’re still in a state of suspended animation, now might be a good time to take a tour of your outdoor living space. You’re looking for hives or nests where the little critters are hibernating. Seek out the underside of your porch, eaves, overhangs, low-hanging branches on trees and decks.

You might also come across a stinging insect’s apartment complex in shrubs and sheds, around the garage. Be an insect and try to figure out what would make a good place to raise a family of needle bugs. A word of caution: Write down where you see these nests. Don’t mess with it yourself. Call in a pro, like us, who knows how to deal with these prickly buggers.

Guide to Stinging Insects

Take a look at this partial list of pests so that you know your enemy before it gets to know you in a biblical way:

• Yellow jackets.
  They’re under an inch in size with a black and yellow pattern. Their homesteads can grow to be the size of a soccer ball. It could be above ground or near the surface of your yard. While they’re thought to be beneficial because they are not the best of friends to other yard pests, call in a licensed pest professional to wipe-out the threat.
• Honey Bees.
  We love their honey, but since they are very sociable, they live in colonies – some containing as many as 80-thousand bees. They’re not going to bother you unless you threaten the group. Your best bet is to get a pro to relocate them where they won’t do you any harm. We need bees. We don’t need to kill these orange brown or black in color insects.
• Bumble Bees.
  You only need to worry about the bumble bee unless it’s near a structure. Another group you don’t want to eradicate. If it weren’t for these fuzzy pests, the world would be full of cactus. We want them to pollinate our flowers.
• Carpenter Bees.
  Usually they burrow into wood to build their homes. That’s the rub. They can cause some serious structural damage if left uncontrolled. The males are stinger less, but the ladies of the group will stick you and it will hurt.
• Baldfaced Hornets.
  Another beneficial insect, but like bumble bees if they’re near a structure, best to get an expert to blast them to another part of the yard where they will do no harm.
• European Hornets.
  Likewise beneficial, these brown with yellow abdominal stripes and a pale faces are generally ones to find a home in your attic, a hollowed-out tree, in a barn or between the walls of your home.
• Mud Daubers.
  If you hate spiders, you should love mud daubers. They feast on arachnids. They like to live in sheds, garages, porch ceilings and attics. You’ll know them because they are skinny little black things.
• Velvet Ants.
  These stingers have absolutely no ant DNA. They’re actually wasps. The nests are generally found in sandy or bare soil. They have an extremely powerful sting. In some parts of the country, they’re known as “cow killers.” The females are the ones that do the damage. The guys are nebbishes that can’t sting.

You may hate bugs with stingers, but in most cases if you leave them alone, they’ll just buzz along their merry little way. That is unless you step on one in your bare feet. At that point, you may mutter that dirty word you learned from your father that first put the hurt on your innocence.