'Honey Bee Sting' vs 'Wasp Sting':
Is there a difference in the properties of their venom? If so does anyone here know what are the differences are?
Phillip
There is definitely a difference to their venom. Honey bee venom actually helps us in several ways. It does not harm the skin at the injection site. A strong wasp sting will kill the cells around the injection site, leaving a black area of dead skin.
Wasp stings hurt for along time where as honey bee stings usually change from a stinging sensation to an itch/swelling.
Wasp stings don?t help remove chronic pain like honey bee stings. Same with medical problems. I have a good friend who has kept her self alive with bee stings for the last 20 years after being diagnosed with stage 4 Brest cancer with daily bee stings.
Jim Altmiller
I took a red wasp sting (orange actually), last afternoon and the effects your describe Jim are spot on. I rarely swell from a honeybee sting. That experience is what prompted me to ask if there is a difference. Thank you for sharing the information about your friend and her Brest cancer bee treatments of daily bee stings.
Steve at Steves' Outdoor world said he got a similar result from having 10 bees sting all around, and on a skin cancer spot on his person. When the spot was removed, the cancer was not present and showed benign.
Phillip
We also need to distinguish between the many, many different kinds of wasps. I'm assuming you were stung by some sort of paper wasp, Phillip, and many of them, as well as the rest of the social wasps (yellowjackets, hornets, etc.) have painful and damaging stings like Jim described. But solitary wasps often have extremely mild stings, or can barely sting at all, in spite of the fact that many have large stingers. And on top of that solitary wasps rarely sting, as they don't have large nests to defend and therefore are not territorial.