How often to get stung?

I get stung several times a week. Before I had my bees I believed that I was one of those people with an anaphylactic reaction to honey bees. Getting them hived (they were recalcitrant cut-outs) caused me to get stung 20-30 times in one awful event, through leather gloves, my bee suit over street clothes, etc. (The girls were NOT pleased with their new accomodations and my insistence that they stay in the ****ed boxes.) I kept anxiously checking in my pocket for my Epi-pen, but never used it.

Apparently whatever kind of bee that sent me to the ER with anaphylaxis years ago wasn't a honey bee, despite what my parents told me. (And this was decades ago as I am in my 60s now.) Pity is that I have been so cautious and anxious around honeybees over my whole lifetime- not to mention the annual cost of Epi-pens as I am a horticulturist/ vegetable farmer and always around foraging bees.

But, beyond the initial hot jolt, I have very little reaction at all to a sting. Occasionally a mild itchiness (nothing compared to our ever-present deer tick bites), and once when I got nabbed right on my index finger knuckle, a soreness and stiffness there for the next day or so. (I worried it might start an arthritic process there, but nothing came of it.)

I've been working my bees barehanded, more and more, and often don't use any smoke. In fact I haven't lit my smoker this season at all, despite doing deep inspections on all the hives. Working without gloves results in less bee-squashing and clumsy bumps and bangs so I think the bees stay calmer. I do keep the gloves in my pocket, though, as occasionally an over-zealous guard bee hasn't read the memo.

My biggest issue with the bees and stinging is that I have very long hair which I wear loose and they get tangled up in it almost every day, with unpleasant results, often when I've just gone down to check on them and not even to do anything to the hives. For that reason and because I really don't want to be stung near the eye I am trying to make myself wear a veil whenever I visit them.

I take no medication - nor do I use alcohol - so maybe that's why the stings don't bother me much.

I had never heard that bee venom on gear could be an allergen or trigger. I do wash my hive jacket separately from my regular clothes, but mostly because it gets filthy and needs a very high temp wash to get half-way presentable.

A year ago, if you had told me I'd be handling bees barehanded, I would have thought you insane. Who knew?

Enj.

Faster than ignoring the swelling and itching? Would you say that relief is relatively quick? Just about a month ago now a friend of mine had a brother, who doesn't work bees, visiting. He got stung near the eye and his face swelled quite a bit, almost shut. If I recall correctly. It wasn't until the next day that someone went to the pharmacy and got him some benadryl. There was visible swelling the day after that. So, was it really effective?

The way I understand things, crudely that is, is that the venom enters the body via penetration of a stinger, of course, and then it enters the blood stream where there is a reaction to the presence of a foreign substance. White blood cells in the blood stream latch onto the venom particles and carry it away. The white blood cells have to have the proper shaped receptor for the venom particle to fit into, a sort of key and lock mechanism.

If the key, the venom, won't fit into the lock, the white blood cell, then that is when a bodily reaction occurs causing swelling and itching and in some cases an allergic reaction which causes low blood pressure and anaphylactic shock characterized by the swelling and closing of the throat making breathing difficult, almost impossible. That's when a Doctor's attention is needed.

Benadryl...

This is purely anecdotal, but... What I've experienced is that the quicker the benadryl is taken after a sting the better it works. To me, taking benadryl the following day seems to be a good bit too late.

I (thankfully) don't have bad reactions to stings. But, if I get several stings to a hand it can swell to a point that the knuckles are only slight high points and the valleys between them have filled mostly in. My hands don't do the "balloon hand" swelling, though. (For full disclosure purposes I will state that I haven't had a face sting yet so I don't know how that will go. inch: )

Anyhow...without benadryl the hand seems to swell more and the swelling stays for a day or so longer. Also, the wonderful ITCHING is more evident without benadryl. *With* benadryl the swelling doesn't seem to stay around that long and seldom do I have any itching. I will take a "shot" of children's liquid benadryl when I come in from the bee yard when swelling is normally just beginning about that time. It seems to nip it in the bud for me.

I have also on occasion taken a shot of benadryl *prior* to working my bees. This was when I intended to go deep into the hive and thus disturb the bees a good bit...creating a better chance of getting stung. In these instances I've actually had little problems after the fact with swelling or itching.

I only use benadryl occasionally these days. I don't recall using it this year, so far. But, if I had a bad day at the beeyard and got more than four or five stings to a hand I'd probably take a swig from the bottle when I got back to the house.

Interestingly, I was reading earlier about using benadryl/antihistamines for bee stings and most of the recommendations were for tablets rather than the liquid. I always thought the liquid was better in that it would enter the bloodstream faster. :scratch: I wonder if it might be that the only liquid benadryl that I've found is "childrens" strength and that adult strength benadryl only comes in tablet form????

Anyhow, those are a snapshot of my experiences...benadryl seems to help lessen my sting reactions...I like to have it around for the times the ladies are in a bad mood and don't act very ladylike.

Ed