Hornets: Gentle Giants! ~ eeeek yea right! Well anyways that's what the website link below says about them. There are some good (scary!) photos of them in this site.

This morning I got up, made my coffee and had just poured a cup when I happened to look up above the window by the kitchen sink and saw one of these monstrosities crawling along the ceiling. After almost fainting, I grabbed my trusty can of Raid flying insect killer and I swear I don't like killing anything but this humongous striped black and yellow killer was in MY HOUSE! So I creeped up (gritting my teeth and being brave) and sprayed up at him and ran like the hounds of Hell were after me to the safety of the room where I paint, shoving a towel under the door to make sure he couldn't get in under the crack and get me for revenge. I was the only one at home since my husband was out of town at the NHRA race event up in Pennsylvania. Whew I could have used him for this mission.

Well at least I got some painting done while the Raid was doing it's job (I thought) so I came out about a half hour later and the giant carcass was NOWHERE to be found. I looked through every nook and cranny in the kitchen for about 2 hours and finally gave up, thinking he had croaked somewhere and I was in for a nasty surprise later. I was googling hornets about 2 hours later when I heard an ominous loud zzzzzz over to the right of me. Well after searching for another hour my cat finally helped me find him. He had fallen down into my potted mother-in-law's tongue plant and was wedged under one of the plants. All I could see was his huge yellow face and one spastic black leg moving. WHEW OK so I carefully drug the whole plant stand outside. because he was still alive when it was getting dark this evening and he had somehow unwedged himself and I never did see if he was still down in the tangled mess at the bottom or got away to go terrorize someone else. I guess that plant will be spending the winter outside cause it's sure not coming back in here!!

http://www.vespa-crabro.de/hornets.htm