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.