July 21, 2018

Stung

I was stung today. The bees are grumpy. I could tell they were not in the good mood when we opened the hive and they were batting into me constantly knocking so hard I could feel them through my thick white bee suit. Its ok, I thought, I am fine, the suit will protect me. I have the suit on, its meant to stop that sort of thing.

Suddenly searing pain! On my lip, through the mesh? This isn’t supposed to happen, where is the bee? In my suit? I am away from the 60,000 bees right next me like a flash, how many more are going to get in? Am I undone somewhere? I move as fast as I can away from the hive and into the open space nearby.

The thing is I have never been stung by a bee so I don’t know if I my airway is about to close or my face swell up. Hubby has to close the hive up so I am on my own.

I get my gloves off, open the zips and check there is nothing inside the suit with me cosying down ready to strike. But bees only sting in desperation – OK so don’t know what desperation there actually was at that moment – but once they do they die. So, 59999 bees now then. When they sting, their abdomen is ripped out, its not a nice way to go at all.

The best advice is to get the stinger out as soon as possible, the venom continues to enter the blood stream for 45-60 seconds after the sting so if you can get the stinger out in 15 seconds the pain and discomfort is greatly reduced….apparently. You are supposed to either pull it out or scrape it off, but not knock it wildly or rub the area like mad trying to reduce the pain.

What does a bee sting look like?