AGH! Bee sting

[Carol Dee]

Good tip Jim. My husband has been stung several times this summer. Not usually when tending the bees! But standing around watching them? Got it in the eyebrow last week and his eye nearly swelled shut.

 

[MontyJ]

i feel your pain v being sting sucks. got stung the other year by a white face hornet right in the tear duct of the eye it swoll up in a matter of minutes and had to go to the hospital.
it was like being punched in the eye and could not see out of it..

Oh man, that had to hurt! They are called bald faced hornets around here. They are some mean tempered, nasty creatures.

 

[journey11]

I'm a little late reading this, but maybe it will help next time... I'm allergic to stings, so what I do is take a leaf of Common Plantain from the yard, chew it up a bit and put it on the spot, covering it with a bandaid. It is a strong astringent, so it sucks the venom out and keeps me from having a reaction. It prevents you from having an itchy welt later too. You can ice over top of that if it still hurts.

 

[JimWWhite]

Good tip Jim. My husband has been stung several times this summer. Not usually when tending the bees! But standing around watching them? Got it in the eyebrow last week and his eye nearly swelled shut.

Last year I was cutting grass on my riding mower and I was about 50 feet away from one of the hives and believe it or not I saw it coming straight at me like a bullet. She caught me right above the left eye and it almost knocked me off the mower. She hit me and buried the stinger in the same instant. I got the mower stopped and I stumbled blindly back up to the house and got some ice on it. That was before I heard about toothpaste. I mean that hurt. The left side of my upper face swelled up and my left eye closed. I couldn't see the next day to drive to work. I wish I'd known about the toothpaste then.

 

[so lucky]

For you bee keepers: what is going on when one honey bee goes out of its way to attack you?

 

[JimWWhite]

For you bee keepers: what is going on when one honey bee goes out of its way to attack you?

My guess is that it's probably a rookie guard bee that was recently elevated to the position from being inside the hive and she took her job a little too seriously. Too bad because she died a pretty violent death by having her insides ripped out when she buried her stinger in me. But really, bees don't like noise around their hives like lawn mowers. They also don't like unpleasant smells, like say a sweaty man on a noisy lawn mower. And finally I had on a dark shirt and bees don't like dark things. Makes them think of bears. Bears love honey. Sweaty smelling bear on a noisy lawn mower and she had honey to protect. Strike Three!!!

 

[vfem]

You know what, I was wearing a brown tee shirt that day. Someone told me they may have mistaken me for a bear and went on the attack on purpose. Usually I wear white or light colors this time of year due to the heat. Its probably been 20 years since the last time I was stung. Thank goodness I'm not allergic (hubby is though).

Next time, I'm going for the toothpaste.