Remedy for bee stings from your yard

[Ben Framed]

JurassicApiary
Absolutely true--some people have worse reactions over time.  Thankfully, most do not.

Y'all are right, it could go either way. I am grateful it got better for me. I joined Beemaster back in 2017 and simply read post here while searching the older post, trying to learn all I could, before I got my first bees. From my first experience on my first cutout (a year later) I was concerned that my body would not allow me to keep bees.  Now I rarely swell..  I do not mind taking stings often and I really believe being stung regularly has made the difference.



From the archives:

Some times where you get stung is relevant, early in my career I was stung on a vein on my wrist and went into a hive like reaction, but never since.
Have also had the ankle bone sting, swelled a little but painful for about 6 hrs.

If I had an anaphylactic reaction, as a migratory bee keeper we are often many miles from medical help, would have to think about finding another occupation.

I was doing a cutout for a lady a few weeks ago and took stings on my hands as usual. I was wearing a ventilation jacket and received no stings on the neck and facial areas. After a couple Hours, not minutes, a couple hours, my left eye started feeling funny. Keep in mind, Up to this point my hands were not swollen. My eye felt so funny that I looked in the mirror of my truck and it was blood red! About that time my hands started showing signs of swelling. The lady that owned the house is a nurse and she had  Benadryl . I took a couple tablets and finished the job but I felt bad for two days. The next job I took Benadryl with me and took the tablets pronto after being stung a few times. All good. I was wondering if I might have took one to the vein in the eye situation??

[Occam]

Indeed. The pain goes away pretty quickly for me, it's the swelling that I like to try to keep down afterwards

The more I've been stung over the years, the milder my reaction has become.  I suppose our bodies get somewhat accustomed to the venom after extended and  repeated exposure and see it as less of a threat than initially.  Occam, hopefully you'll develop a better tolerance and the swelling reactions will become increasingly minimal over time.

Yeah recently I've received a few stings that are pretty much non-issue stings. A couple times I've found the stinger stuck in me but never felt the sting or had any pain/reaction. Usually the only ones that are bothersome are the finger stings. I'm not avoiding the stings at all because I often have some wrist pain and it does improve when I'm stung in the hand.