Bad reaction to bee sting!

[Hnybkpr]

This is my 5 year keeping bees. I have been stung many times with nothing more than a whelp the size of a quarter. Went out to refill their sugar water yesterday evening and on the way back, ended up getting stung on the my face. Both hands and feet went bright red and swelled up. Then had a bad rash all over. Ended up going to the hospital, they gave me some drugs and such. Everything is good now but my doctor said the next one could be worse. Any suggestions on what I can do or why this happened?

[Sam Fugate]

About three weeks ago I got stung on my butt (yes my butt) and it didn't effect me at all. Just a small swollen area about 1/4" in diameter. which was normal for me. Last week I got stung on the back of my upper arm and it hurt like the dickens, was swollen,red,and hot for almost a week. The easy sting was from an Italian, the painfull sting was from a swarm. Was your sting from different breeds ?

[Eddie Honey]

Exact same thing happened to me this past April. I got stung on the side of my head.
The ER doc told me the same thing.

Now, I wear my suit no matter what I'm doing with the bees. They have stung me twice through the gloves but I had no reaction. My wife gave me a prednisone (sp) with each sting. We've always kept Epi-Pens on hand but never needed them. We also keep liquid Benedryl, Zantac, and Prednisone.

For me, I chalked it up to seasonal allergies being in full swing and the bee sting putting my immune system over the top plus the location of the sting probably was near the bloodflow expressway if you will.

Wear a good suit, always use smoke, and if the bees get crazy just walk away.

[Wickedlees]

So, me too! With each sting it's gotten worse, some are less painful, some are more. But yesterday I went to refill the food, actually my son brought me the jar, which I filled and he was going to replace it, it's a top feeder, he went out and said, hey Mom, there are a whole lotta bees I don't want to smoosh them, so I went out and looked, almost IMMEDIATELY they swarmed my head! I'm not even kidding about 10 got caught in my hair, I took a sting on the back of the neck, 1 on the front of my neck, 2 on the scalp, 1 on my wrist and 1 on my ankle. I was wearing just a tshirt and capri pants. But seriously we never have issues with just dropping a jar on a top feeder. My son was very freaked out (he's 15) that the bees reacted to me in such a way, I will note that I had shampooed my hair with something called Morroco oil which I've noticed they dislike before but normally I'm in my suit or at very least my veil. I got pretty sick last night and even today I feel like crud. I'm a first year bee keeper, I may have gotten a bit complacent and didn't bother with my normal precautions. I'm now totally sketched out about getting stung, each site of the sting today is huge and swollen... not a happy camper. I will admit that I normally make slow deliberate movements and never slap at them or freak out, but with hair to my waist and 10 or more bees tangled up in it, I did flip out like a 9 yr old girl. Which likely made it worse... I think if had possibly slowly walked away and not freaked out I would have been stung less.... I feel like an idiot. Thank God no one was there taking pictures for my blog that day!