How Would You Survive In a Jungle?

How would you survive in a jungle? I feel like the jungle biome would be one of the hardest to survive in. There's all tops of exotic animals, which are dangerous, and poisonous bugs/spiders. I don't even know how I would go about surviving a tiger attack, or a spider bite. Do you have any tips? What would you do if you found yourself in the situation?
I think it's best to avoid the water. Besides that, I think it's best to have weapons on you that you can use to take down big animals. A panther or a tiger attack could be life threatening. However, I think the BEST option is to never get lost in a jungle without a tour guide/protection. I don't think I'd honestly try to go to a jungle at all, in any situation.

 

The hardest part of surviving in a jungle is the excessive rain and dampness of the plants and other foliage - your potential tinder. A fire is of utmost importance in the jungle. Fire keeps you warm at night and dissuades animals from approaching your campsite. A shelter would need to be created first, from broken sticks and the waxy leaves of the palm tree. Palm trees can also be a reliable food source as their palm hearts contain up to 500 calories per 500 grams - vital energy for survival. Most jungle environments have small herbivorous mammals. These can be hunted if you make a decent enough trap - a traditional snare and sapling trap should be sufficient. The worst part of surviving in a jungle is that even if you get a shelter, fire and reliable food source, a venomous spider or snake will kill you regardless. Keeping an alert mind is imperative.

 

My choice for surviving a jungle, would be to not go to a jungle. Avoid that option. Much the same way I feel about cities, though I do have to go there sometimes. It's important to know your boundaries and limitations. If it would take an extreme amount of study that could be used better elsewhere, by further preparing in ways you are most adapted, then just don't go to the jungle. Problem solved.

 

I remember reading the odessey of a senior citizen who strayed and got lost in the jungle and a thick one at that in the Readers Digest. He kept moving and moving until finally, barely able to hold himself together, if heard the sound of vehicles and went into the main road. He had spent considerable time and energy moving round in circles. This means that you've got to move in a straight line or one direction and try to arm yourself with a pointed quick. I would keep moving and moving.

 

[QUOTE = "Bánh mì nướng, bài đăng: 9308, thành viên: 1659"] Bạn sẽ sống sót trong rừng như thế nào? Tôi cảm thấy như quần xã trong rừng sẽ là một trong những loài khó sống sót nhất. Có tất cả các loài động vật kỳ lạ, là loài bọ / nhện độc và nguy hiểm. Tôi thậm chí không biết làm thế nào tôi sống sót sau khi bị hổ tấn công hay bị nhện cắn. Bạn có bất cứ lời khuyên? Bạn sẽ làm gì nếu thấy mình trong tình huống này?
Tôi nghĩ rằng tốt nhất là tránh nước. Bên cạnh đó, tôi nghĩ tốt nhất là mang theo vũ khí cho bạn mà bạn có thể sử dụng để hạ gục những

 

Good afternoon Juli95,

Welcome to the Forum.

Can you post in English language ?

The most dangerous area to survive in is - urban -.

 

Urban jungle

 

Juli95, I believe you posted in Vietnamese. I translated your post to english. Hope thats OK?

I personally believe the marine environment is the toughest environment to survive alone.

I have survived in the jungles alone on several occasions for SERE training, with the longest being 63 days. Alone is very hard, especially when in places with animals like tiger, jaguar, crocodile, wild elephants, venomous snakes and so much more. Just walking in the jungle can make you sick if you don't look down ever so often. Food isn't as plentiful as the movies make it out to be. You have to stay situationally aware of everything around you in the jungle. Even at night. I had an instructor that said everything in the jungle bites, claws, scratches, stings or tries to hurt you in some fashion. He was right. His language wasn't that nice either. LOL!

Personally, I rank survival environments this way (Hardest to easiest)

1. Marine (open ocean)
2. Jungle
3. Alpine
4. Desert
5. Contested Urban (hostile environment/warfare)
6. Artic
7. Conifer Forest
8. Deciduous Forest

I have completed SERE courses for all of these environments except marine.

Move quietly, move cautiously, stop every 6 to 10 paces and watch your backtrack, don't grab ANYTHING for support or balance (Much of the jungles vegetation has spines, thorns and other ways of hurting you) plus that vine you grab may be a snake. Rest frequently, NEVER stare at the vegetation, especially while walking. Learn survival skills BEFORE entering any survival situation.

Dale

 

If some crew attempts to relocate me to a jungle, I'll kill as many of them as I can before dying myself. Considering the dilapidation of my skeleton's lower joints, going out in a fire-fight is looking better and better (hips and legs are a joke, a study in pain; upper body has been repaired back into working condition; I re-qualified for expert in my 50's, here in the years since, my hands remain steady, no shaking) Bought another toy; at the rifle range I'm still decent or better, it seems. If the metropolitan melanomas spill out into the real America, I'll surgically remove it, cell by cell by cell. If I get killed, so what! I'll go say, "Howdy" to the fellows who started my nation. Whenever I'm at Thomas Jefferson's grave, I pray for him and his family. I encourage others to pray for our Founders during these days wherein the Godless baby-murderers and would-be communist dictators are fighting to rape our nation of all Liberty and Godliness. It's war, ladies and gentlemen. And it's not just against the Constitution-burners, it is a war against spiritual disease itself. The cackling jackals of darkness must be eliminated. Don't do it for yourself, do it so as to let back in the Light of Divinity. We are but His servants. I'm proud to be His servant; I wish to be nothing more.

Jungle things have to be put down.

 

Here are a couple of jungle stories:

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/20...ring-man-genitals-holding-knife-woman-throat/

"Two men, Shaan Khanyal and Achal Close, alongside a teenager, have been jailed for kidnapping and robbery after abducting and torturing a young couple, tasering the male victim’s genitals, and holding a knife to the female victim’s throat in Coventry, England.

"Believing that his torture would not end, the young man attempted to commit suicide.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/20...be-released-after-just-seven-years-in-prison/

"A convicted rapist who viciously beat and raped a 63-year-old woman is set to be released by the Parole Board after serving just seven years in prison.

"Wendell Baker, the Jamaican born rapist, was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of the attack on a retired secretary, Hazel Blackwell in her East London home.

"Mrs Backwell died five years later, never fully recovering from the attack. Her son said that she died 'with a broken heart and a shadow of her former self'”
.

 

I actually consider Desert being the hardest (no water), Alpine being second (too cold & thin air), Artic at third (too cold and its freaking desert)

 

This thread brings back memories of when I found myself unarmed and away from my unit in Viet Nam . A young lady told me how to get back to my unit . So in the middle of the night I went dide boping down a jungle trail that she had sent me . She had also warned me of a lot of V.C. in the area . Actually I was leaving the same village A " Apache " copycat had tried to abduct me a few weeks earlier . She didn't capture me but settled on two other soldiers that were later found cut up into pieces . Anyway down along that jungle trail in the middle of the night I went. The girl had given me good information or I would not be here . --- That was a very stupid situation to let myself be found in , but I expect our war veterans can relate to . When you figure your life expectancy to be measured in hours not days , it is amazing at the chances a person will take in what they conceive as their last few hours on earth . ---- As for as being lost or stranded in a jungle , my main concern would be the blood sucking insects not the larger wildlife . I went to sleep laying on the ground with not any protection barer last fall near the Yellowstone with a big lurking creature just a few feet outside our vision and got a good nights rest . I did have my rifle beside me . I found a pile of very large and fresh bear crap about 40 yards from where I slept later .

 

Why is it that we possessors of the dangerous Y chromosome so readily leap into the nests of such spiders?! It would be wise of us to take on a greater fear of our own nature. There is the Achilles heel. There is also the Achilles d##k. The latter condition is unfortunately not restricted to mythology.

DEET. Sacred DEET. No survival kit is complete without it.

The spiritual DEET must be formulated in a man's own soul such that he will afford himself some protection against large XX arachnids whose wish it is to lure him, breed with him, then eat him. The first and only love that spiders possess is towards their offspring. *

* I now wish to deeply and with supreme humility apologize to our female members for my having allowed the blatantly misogynist demons to escape out their cages normally locked-shut in subconscious labyrinths. Mea culpa. Consider me to be a bit of a sociopath. Others have done so and do so now. It would appear that such good souls have been blessed with unerring wisdom by their merciful Creator.
.

 

Good afternoon Dale and Varuna,

In current, "normal", "pleasant" times;

Richmond, Virginia has 7 hospitals and 4 emergency clinics
San Francisco has ~ 21 assorted
Baltimore County has 5 hospitals plus some clinics
Washington, D.C. has 16

During non-pleasant normal times, trash/garbage is not collected. Think of during hurricanes. Yet, waste - everything from medical waste to cafeteria waste - is piling up.

The rats and mosquitoes love it.

Someone stuck in an urban area has a shelf life very, very short.

Look at New York City. Better yet, don't even think of the place. The homeless assist the rodents as vectors.

No need to tally the other institutions eg jails, funeral homes, ...........

Recommend review list and Prepper planning for urban filth areas.

 

And there is the matter of fleas.

Some unclean regions have crabs.

Cleanliness is good.
.

 

P, the question was surviving. Part of surviving either in military or civilian is the ability to leave a hostile area and move to a friendly zone. I walked out of Los Angeles in 84' in 3 days without being in a hurry, so I figure I could walk out of any city in a matter of days to get to a more survivable area.

In a marine survival situation, you are probably on a vessel (if your lucky) that has no means of propulsion outside of the tides and wind. In some places, you may never see land again. Or even a passing ship if you float out of the shipping lanes. On the ocean, you have little chance of collecting food in deep water and must depend on rain for all drinking water.

In every city around the globe that I have been in you are seldom very far from some source of water. Food is always available (with the exception of war zones) in some form or another (Trash cans, dogs, cats, etc. etc.) I would have gladly traded being homeless in New York city in 84' for the 63 days I spent in a green hell. I don't look at survival situations as being somewhere I will have to live. In true survival mode I know what I am willing to do so that I live one more day. In that mode, a city is a marketplace. Survival mode is not normal living mode.

Where as Varuna considers desert the hardest, followed by alpine and artic I didn't find those as difficult as marine and jungle. I believe much of those considerations are built upon life experiences and the preferences that each of us have for where we want to live and considering where we grow up. Growing up in the Appalachian mountains and preferring to live in mountains (Appalachians and Rockies) has to be considered in why I find survival there easier than other locations. I was taught that life experience makes great impacts in how we approach survival in all locations. Even how soldiers and civilians deal with captivity and escape and evasion, stems much from life's experiences.

There is no right and wrong answers for preferences on survival locations, no more than there is a right or wrong choice of how to catch a fish. What matters is catching the fish.

Dale

 

Jungles are a very tough environment. DNBI was always problematic for military forces fighting or deployed to these regions. I spent the first 1/3 of my military career deployed in this environment. Its an unforgiving environment with lots of nasty diseases.

I tend to agree, in general, with the list of severity of risk based on climate. However, with my training and background (including living in the southern US bayous for four years prior to moving to Alaska, I'd do better in the swamp/jungle verses the desert simply due to what I am used to.

Considering only environment, I'd agree that the deciduous is more advantageous than conifer forest. But when you add proximity to major urban populations and the pressure the masses would put on the environment, I am most happy in my coniferous forest (northern boreal forest to be exact, which is a subset of conifer) of Alaska. No place else I'd rather be to make a go for it.

 

Good morning Dale,

In chron order;

Los Angeles in 1984 is different than 2020. In 2020, it is different for the other cities also.

The worst situation marine survival situation I've ever trained for is an in-flight emergency over long-haul water.

Contemporary cities - I'm not directly addressing the human / sub-human elements - have substantially changed. Once famous for health .. thing of LA's Cedars of Lebanon Medical Center, NY's "New York Painless" dentistry, ... the cities are now disease ridden. Water sources could probably be infected.

New York City in 1984 was decent compared to 2020. Where Varuna's ancestors are from Jakarta, the former Batavia, the Dutch introduced "Dutch clean" public health. This occurred later in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong and later in the US Philippines. These urban environments changed.

When adding the urban population to the urban environment of 2020 - I'm not discussing preferences - the megacities are the most difficult to survive in.

 

I was sent to Belize with the army and what a shite hole place it is, I did some training but really did not enjoy the experience.

 

Good morning Max,

When there's a next time, request an assignment in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Comparative studies do wonders for appreciation.

 

For me its more because I'm native to the environment, thus my body (including immune system) & mind could adapt far better. And being from place where water of all kind is abundant and the soil is so fertile to the point anything you throw will grow (albeit not always) its really difficult for me to even think the HOW to survive in more arid / barren places such as dessert or arctic

I actually has to Oogling as where the F is "Belize". From what short summary I could read British military using it as permanent jungle warfare training camp. I'm rather curious as why choose a places as small as Belize where alternative places within Her Majesty realms is available for jungle warfare training? Northern Australia territory is big enough for a Division size
manoeuvring.

 

You must not remember NYC in the 1980's. It makes the current mess look peaceful. Year to date NYC is reporting on 664 shootings, not homicides. In 1984 NYC had 1622 HOMOCIDES not just shootings. Compare that with the 164 homicides for this years first 6 months. I'm pretty sure I'd still choose 2020 over 84'.

1984 wasn't even NYC's worst year for violence in the 80's. That title goes to 1981 with a grand total of 1826 homicides. NYC in the pre Giuliani years was a brutal place. Not even current Chicago has anywhere near the homicide rate of 1980's NYC. I spent some time there walking the streets, seeing the sights. It was rough. Gangs and organized crime ruled the streets. trash was everywhere as was graffiti.

I have no idea what your bringing Varunas ancestors into the conversation for. ??? Not understanding how that plays into the conversation for survival or SERE.

Dale

 

Varuna, Belize used to be call British Honduras. They speak english as the national language and use the US dollar for currency. It is mostly politically stable. It also has awesome salt water fishing (Sailfish, yellowfin tuna, etc.) and a world known vacation spot. I plan on going there in a couple years myself.

Dale

 

I found very little enjoyable about any jungle I was ever in (Asia, Australia & South/Central Americas) but as a young single man Thailand and the Philippines had some nice attractions. Sydney too now that I think about it.

Dale

 

Australia is still a Commonwealth country but we don't run it. We've had a commitment to Belize for many years and soldiers from all regiments can end up there for training, cross skills training sort of thing. You could be talking to a medic or an engineer and find out they had been there or done parachute training, Arctic warfare training etc. Britain has a history of jungle fighting going back to WW2 and the Malayan crisis. Some special air service fella's went on secondment to the Australian SAS and of course ended up with auzzy forces in Vietnam during the conflict there.

Belize is the arsehole of the world until you get into town and there its a laid back place and the natives are friendly

 

Thats a fact, when I was sweating like a weightwatcher in a cake shop I used to dream of the UK hills in winter

 

DITTO!!!!

 

I love swamps and thickets but real equatorial jungles are tough places to survive. Endless humidity and heat followed by floods and days on end of rain. Everything wants to bite you and the most deadly are the bugs that carry all manner of hellified diseases that you don't know you have until it hits you. There is no way to avoid the biting bugs and parasites. Digging the Panama Canal was DEADLY for the workers from America.

From The History of The Panama Canal..."As a worker on the Panama Canal, there are many diseases around. However, the most prominent diseases at the time were Yellow Fever and Malaria. In 1906, more than 85% of the Canal Workers were hospitalized. IT was a major outbreak the Canal workers could not avoid."

The French tried to build a railway and canal across the isthmus of Panama but gave up after An estimated 12,000 workers had died during the construction of the Panama Railway and over 22,000 during the French effort to build a canal. The Americans went at it a few years later and only lost 5600 due to much improved medical care offered to the workers. Still a hell of a job.

 

Since I join any survivalist forums, I always want to write kind of guide to Jungle survival, particularly pertinent to adaptation, equipments, animals behaviors, edible flora & fauna, known hazzard, etc. However looking to the general attitude of the forums participant who all come from temperate or sub arctic climate thus will do their best to avoid such environment, I strongly doubt there will be any interest whatsoever.

I personally doesn't have the slightest clue let alone working experience in arctic or dessert environment, yet I always try to learn something new, because you never knew when you might need one in a hurry.

 

For those who didn't realise it, the Antarctic is the biggest desert on the planet covering over 5 million square miles. I'm very happy in hot dry desert or sub zero/rain/snow environments, it is the jungle in between I don't enjoy.

 

I watch a lot of survival TV shows and when it comes to jungles there is an adjustment period that some people go through and adapt and some it eats alive. The biting bugs and the intense HUMID heat just sucks the life our of them and is relentless. The food thing is just a matter of knowing what is eatable and to accept that it may not be things that you are used to. If a place is full of monkeys there is food there. The same for hogs.

I honestly don't know what it is that makes the bugs totally eat up one person and not seem to bother another person nearly as much. I was raised in a place that was hot, humid and mosquito-infested. Mosquitos don't bother me much even when they are eating someone right beside me ALIVE. When I was younger the heat didn't bother me either. I loved the swamps and jungle-like thickets both day and especially at night.

The places like Panama have diseases that are specific to that type of environment and the indigenous people either adjusted to that or died and so after many generations they became more able to deal with those diseases. Americans and Europeans that went there were like what happened to the native North and South Americans when the Europeans came and introduced their diseases to them.

I think that as far as long term disaster survival you need to stay as much as possible in the environment and area that YOU are adapted to. You need to continue as much as possible the life that you best understand because going to an extremely different lace may kill you before you can adapt.

Unfortunately, people that live in the big cities that think nature is a little park with picnic tables are doomed if something happens that cuts of the constant flow of power, water and the endless flow of food into the city from places hundreds or thousands of miles away.

If you live in a city there are things that you can do to improve your chances. One has to do with preparing your body. You can be a marathon runner andstill not be able to survive the germs and diet that may be forced on you. I think that there are a lot of hidden benefits to eating natural local foods. if you can grow a small garden. If not find a farmers market. LOCAL honey offers a lot of antibacterial properties and is much better for you than cultured and purified commercially produced honey. The taste and specific blend in honey is totally different from place to place depending on what flowers and plants they were gathering from.

I would probably do better than most in a jungle as far as the heat and humidity but nothing can totally prepare you for that places specific set of viruses and germs. I would probably struggle and might not make it in a desert or frozen environment. Knowledge gained from reading just isn't even close to the same as actual experience in any sort of environment. I was raised in a place that was hot, humid, rained a LOT, and even in the winter, there were never days that it didn't get above freezing and a blizzard was enough snow to make a small snowman. Not a good preparation for survival in Alaska, Minnesota, or Arizona.

 

The problem these days is that people are too clean. If you will let it, the environment will vaccinate you. Kids NEED to get dirty. If you are a clean freak when your kid goes to school they are going to be sick all the time. I always have eaten a little dirt and drink from fresh puddles after a rain and I am never sick. If you don't do this when you can't bath and wash your hands every time you touch something you are going to be sick at a time when you can least afford that. There is no reason for you not being mostly immune to the little germs that are native to your area.

 

I agree completely. As a kid I ran all over these mountains and never knew most people took a canteen with them for water. I always drank from the numerous springs and creeks in the area and ate whatever was in season in the woods or waters. Didn't change until I got to my first jungle while in the army. That water made me sick, sick sick. LOL! Learned a lesson quick.

Dale

 

I agree, Lonewolf. Many of us are Babyboomers. When we were kids the water in the streams was considerably cleaner. It wasn't until I was a teenager when the streams in the mountains where we used to hike started to get contaminated.

As far as jungle survival goes, the only way I would have to survive in the jungle is if my plane crashes there. First, I have no intention of getting on a plane. Second, if I did get on a plane I have no reason whatsoever, to get on a plane that is flying over a jungle.

It is not something I even consider in my preps.

 

Interesting article in The Independent. On an average waterways in the UK are the cleanest they've been in 130 years, salmon is coming back, more trout in more rivers now as the O2 increases because the water is getting better, it one positive benefit from UK heavy industry closing down and the remaining industry having to work cleaner.
https://www.independent.co.uk/envir...han-they-have-been-for-200-years-9147298.html

Part of it
"Rivers and estuaries in England and Wales are probably cleaner now than at any time since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the Environment Agency said yesterday. And, as if to prove it, the first salmon in 130 years were caught in the Mersey.

While the agency's figures were being disclosed in London, three cock salmon, the largest 3ft long and nearly 15lb, were caught in a fish-trap at a weir near Warrington, between Liverpool and Manchester. Agency staff weighed and measured them, then released them back into a river that 15 years ago was regarded as one of the most industrialised and polluted watercourses in Europe. The last salmon were caught in the Mersey in 1870."

Its a step in the right direction.



The agency's river-water quality figures showed the record level of cleanliness achieved last year had been maintained and in some cases surpassed. In England and Wales, 94 per cent of rivers – about 24,000 miles in total – attained "good" or "fair" water quality last year, as opposed to between 91 and 92 per cent in 1999. "Fair" would typically mean a river can support coarse fish and its water can be abstracted for drinking; "good" means it could even support trout, which need a higher level of cleanliness and dissolved oxygen in the water. Only 5 per cent were rated "poor" and 1 per cent rated "bad", which mean the rivers are unlikelyto contain any life.

 

I wouldn't drink from a flowing creek or river but puddles are different as long as they are fresh and in a place that you know what the runoff is. All you will get in the way of bacteria and such are the ones that are native to your area and unless you are a clean freak that wears rubber gloves and washes their hands 30 times a day you are going to get those eventually anyway. Any time that you go someplace that you have never been before you are at risk of meeting some germs that you have not been infected by before. In Texas, we call that Montezuma's Revenge. The first time you go to Mexico unless you only drink bottled water and no raw vegetables you are going to get the trots for a couple of days. It is no better for the Mexicans coming this way though. They will have the same sort of problem.

 

Shame that cleaning rivers also cleans-out economies.

God knows that the Chinese don't give a rat's @$$ about anything that gets in the way of their industrial goals.

Move it to China! "Out of sight, out of mind."

The hand-wringers get wiped-out and the monsters survive. Welcome to Earth.
.

 

It individual scent that attract insect, although the colour of clothing also matter

The thing with natural immunity is although they work most of the time there is always a "window of opportunity" where it get weaken enough for whatever reason to let local / native disease to slip in. For example I traded my blood with Yellow fever virus in routine basis, however I realize that sooner or later my natural immunity might fail against that specific disease thus require preventive measures still need to be taken.

 

We used to eat several match heads from the paper match books in the C-rats and early MRE's. Did something with the way we smelled and the mosquitos mostly left us alone. I hated the leeches more than the mosquitos. Some days you could hear them falling out of the trees like rain drops. Not sure how much blood I left in different jungles.





JEST school (Jungle Environment Survival Training) U.S. Navy used to be at Subic Bay Navel Air Station in Luzon, Philippines. Sent through 3 different trainings there.

Dale

 

I think also that over time and several thousand bites you develop something that makes you less attractive or makes it so your body no longer reacts to that bite very much. I say this because I used to be skeeter bait when I was a kid. One summer I worked as a flagman in the rice fields for a crop dusting service. OMG!!! You have never seen mosquitos like you will see in a rice field as dawn when an airplane comes down right on the deck and sprays them with something. I have looked down at my arms and they looked like I had on long sleeves and was wearing some sort of hairy wool shirt! Thousands of bites a day. I guess any regular number just stopped making an impression on me and now they seem to mostly ignore me is there is someone else to bite.

 

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. My first monsoon it rained hard enough that I made a shelter for my face with my poncho. The mosquitos filled it. I was actually breathing some in. I would almost bath in DEET and I swear, I think they used it as steak sauce when I was a cherry. I agree that after enough bites they either quit biting or your immune system stops the bite reaction. I never swell from bites and my family gets ate up. They can't figure it out and I tell them it's there hormones.

Dale

 

I used to use an entire can of OFF in a single day in the rice fields. Finally, I went to a military 100% DEET and when that didn't stop them I gave up. They ate me alive for about a week and then I just stopped noticing them. As you say, they may have been biting me, but they left no swollen bumps or any sign of their bite. Now I can say that they mostly just are not biting me if there is an alternative. LOL, My current fishing buddy is GREAT mosquito bait, When we are cleaning fish I can look at my arms and there isn't a single mosquito on them and then look at his arms, when he isn't slapping on them, and they are all over him. I usually tell people that I am a bug whisperer and just tell the bugs to leave me alone.

I actually have a lot of ability to deal with lots of the insect kingdom. I have pet wasp nests all over my place. I protect them from my wife and kids because they are mine and they protect my place from invading wasp that is not tame. I can and do walk up to a red paper wasp nest that is over a foot in diameter and touch it with a finger and let the wasp crawl down it onto my hand and arm and I never get stung. They protect my porch from wasp that might sting a visitor...Mine bother nobody.

I used to help to harvest the honey out of beehives and even went and gathered in swarms that were looking for a new home and were "visiting" someplace that they were unwelcome. i don't own a bee suit and don't need one. I was taught how to handle them and generally don't even use smoke when I am robbing a hive.

A couple of years ago we were camping in a state park on a big lake. All of a sudden the kids and women started screaming and squealing. There were bees everywhere. I got everyone to settle down and just be still and the bees swarmed on a low limb of a tree between my campsite and my neighbors. When the bees gathered there was a ball nearly as big as a basketball of bees. I took my little Granddaughter over to the swarm and ley her watch as I introduced myself into the swarm. I was in them up to my elbow when I found the queen. I gently cupped her in my hand and let the bees swarm move from the tree limb and onto me. LOL, I had bees from my hand to my armpit and a few checking out my face. My Grandbaby's eyes were as big as saucers!!!

Once they had settled I took them out of the camping area into the woods and placed them in a small tree. I bid them goodbye and left them there. I didn't get stung a single time. I never do. Honey Bees are industrious gentle creatures that only sting if they are protecting their hive, queen, or think that you are trying to hurt them. Wasps are not as gentle but if you know-how and are gentle with them they can be handled too. Hornets ARE EVIL!!! They attack almost as soon as they spot you anywhere within a hundred feet of their nests sometimes.

If possible I will gather together a few swarms if things go to the pits in the future. i don't have hives now because my Daughter in law is terrified of them. I am slowly getting her so she can tell the difference between a bee and a wasp and when we eat outside I set a bowl of something with sugar beside me and let the bees walk all over me. They seem to like my face a lot and I will usually have several on my face that I lured there by dipping my finger in the sugar water and putting a little on my cheeks. She has pretty much stopped screaming and running from every flying insect that she sees until she identifies it as a wasp. She can't let the bees sit on her but she isn't bothered by having them around now. She is literally a master gardener. (there is a gardening club here called Master Gardeners that she is a member of. She understands that we have to have bees if she wanted her plants and fruit trees to produce. it has only taken 15 years for her to get OK, not really comfortable, with me and my bees.

 

When I was in, the JOTC was based out of Fort Sherman, Panama. When I was stationed in Central America, I had the good fortune to go through the course. But what I enjoyed most was playing OPFOR for the school. Only got to play OPFOR a couple of times. Being OPFOR can be pretty fun.

 

What with the bolo blade in the patch? Did you guys trained using predominantly bolo knive?