bald-faced hornet

1796 (1905) Latrobe Jrl. of Latrobe 104 VA, The bald-face hornet. This dangerous fly is proverbially fierce. [1833 Amer. Turf Reg. 4.648, Ball Hornet, six years old, by Rob Roy. [DARE Ed: Bald Hornet and Ball Hornet appear frequently as names for race horses.] ] 1842 Globe (DC) 16 Aug [4]/1 (newspaperarchive.com), Their report proved to have the severest sting, although not accompanied with half so acrimonious a sound as that of the bald hornet. 1859 Taliaferro Fisher’s R. 194 nwNC (as of 1820s), It was as if you had assaulted a ball-hornet’s nest. 1861 IL State Ag. Soc. Trans. 4.341, The nest of our American bald-faced hornet is occasionally suspended in a house to kill off the house-flies. 1899 (1912) Green VA Folk-Speech, Baldface hornet. . . A hornet so called because it has a whitish head. 1901 Forest & Stream 56.182 ME, She had run foul of a ball hornets’ nest, an’ two o’ the critters had hit her to onst. 1915 Ft. Worth Star–Telegram (TX) 17 Apr 4/2, So there the metropolitans and cosmopolitans are, disconsolate among their skyscrapers and mad as bald hornets when their nest has been poked and rocked by bad boys. 1952 Gaz. & Bulletin (Williamsport PA) 14 Oct 12/1, An outdoorsman brought a twig from a beech thicket into the newspaper office. On the twig was the very fine paper-like nest of a ball-faced hornet. 1961 (2012) Madson Stories 154 IA, I would rather surprise a basking rattlesnake than a nest of bald hornets in early summer. 1966–70 DARE (Qu. R21, . . Other kinds of stinging insects) Inf MI2, Bald-faced hornet—the biggest hornet, has a white face; MI65, Bald-faced hornet—the ones that make the paper nests; he is striped brown and white; MI116, WI43, Bald-faced hornet; CA197, Bald hornet; KY5, Bald hornet—black with gray abdomen, white face. 1971 Sun. Messenger (Athens OH) 24 Oct 16/4, I suppose the worst ones still with us are the bald face hornets and the yellow jackets. 1986 (1987) Hubbell Country Yr. 95 Ozarks, Bald-faced hornets . . are big stout insects, three quarters of an inch long, black with whitish yellow markings on the head, thorax and abdomen. 2007 in 2015 DARE File—Internet cMI, Don’t forget Ball face hornets too. I was stung 18 times on one ear by them and my ear was as big as my head! Ibid OR, Bald faced hornets literally eat yellowjackets. While quartering elk the yellowjackets will swarm around the meat and soon the hornets are there attacking the yellowjackets. 2010 in 2015 DARE File—Internet WV, There was a big ball-hornets nest up there and hornets were flying all around our heads. 2014 DARE File—Internet CA, We take off running with a cloud of ball faced hornets chasing us. 2015 Ibid WV, When I was a kid I strapped a pack of fire crackers to the end of a broomstick, lit them, and jammed them into a bald hornets nest. Needless to say I didn’t run fast enough.