Bee Sting In Toe

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m gonna whine and complain here, because there’s no one else around to hear me.

I haven’t had bee stings in FOREVER. Not even when I was having problems with bees around my deck and the siding of my house. This year I had the deck and house sprayed and there’s no bees hangin’ 'round my doors. Yay!

But I still have a backyard full of clover (instead of grass), and if I let it go too long it flowers and once you’ve got a yard full of clover flowers you are BEE CENTRAL.

Normally I don’t even notice. I’m not hanging around the yard, just the dog is. But this year I got a 12’ pool for the dog (she’s old) and so we go out there every day for some swimmin, me in my swim suit and bare feet. I’m literally like 3 yards from the deck. I look down, I watch where I step.

But TWICE now I have stepped on bees. MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRR I forgot how much bees hurt!!! I swear, I haven’t been bitten in like 20 years.

The first time was the second toe on my right foot and while it hurt for a bit and was itchy for a while, it didn’t swell too much or bother me.

Yesterday I got stung in the big toe on my left foot and it hurt like the dickens. I limped around the house and cursed. I saw the stinger and grabbed it out. I managed to make it feel better enough so I could get on the tractor and mow that clover down!

But today, man…wow, I had no idea there was that much room in a toe. It’s at least twice the size of the right foot toe. Some times it’s numb, some times it stings. Shoes are RIGHT OUT. Walking is stupid hard.

I read up on it and the swelling is totally normal. No cause for alarm (except everyone seems to get alarmed, and post to the Internet about it). And it might take FIVE DAYS to go down!

I’m glad I managed to trim and paint my nails before my “injury” otherwise I’d be pissed to see this big swollen monstrosity under not-so-pretty nails.

So, that’s all. When was the last time you got stung by a bee?

2

An actual bee? Probably when I was about 10. Same deal, walking barefoot through a lawn with clover in it.

However, in September 2011 I ran over a yellowjacket nest with my lawnmower. 11 stings, IIRC. Put me in the urgent care. I had one sting since then, last summer. Right above my eye. My face swelled up like a balloon and I looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy (more than I already do)

I have absolutely no mercy for flying stinging insects now. I’ll leave honeybees alone, but everything else dies. I take great delight in watching the “let’s kill a hornet’s nest with fire” videos that are on YouTube.

3

just yesterday on the ear.

4

I have not been stung by a bee for many years… roughly 15 years, if I recall correctly. However, wasp stings are a different story. I live very rural and at this time of year, they are very aggressive in getting ready for the winter. My property has lots of water, and that’s where they love to build their nests – near water. So getting stung isn’t usually a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when.’ If I’m lucky, it’ll be just one or two stings. If I’m not lucky, it will be a lot more.

This year, so far, so good. But it’s early in the season. :confused: Wish me luck. I hate them.

5

I haven’t had a bee sting in a long time now, which is handy cos I’m allergic to them.

Last time was roughly 20 years ago when I was cleaning the roof gutters at mums house for her and got a dopey bee. Bit on little finger.

Ignored it for a while, mum having kittens about did I need to go to hospital, then after a bit the red lines started appearing on the throat. Ok, into the car and off to hospital, shot of adrenalin and phenergyn, wait 15, go home.

Native wasps don’t fuss me, they aren’t aggressive but those yellow things that look a lot like bees that we call European Wasps are nasty bastards.

6

Last Tuesday. And it wasn’t a bee, but a wasp. Down my pants and it stung me several times on the butt.

I had an appointment to give an estimate (painting.) The missus opened the door and as I stepped into the foyer, I started to feel an intense burning on my butt. Initially I tried to ignore it and focus on greeting the client but that only lasted about 1.2 seconds.

What the client saw:
Person arrives to give painting estimate.
As she comes in the door, her pleasant smile turns into a rictus of pain, she starts pounding her backside, she blurts “excuse me!” and bolts into the nearest room and slams the door.
I can’t imagine what the client was thinking at this point…

The room I’d dashed into was the half bath. I yanked my pants down and a BIG DEAD WASP FELL OUT OF MY UNDERPANTS. Apparently I’d squashed it dead while pounding my backside. And there were three big angry red burning lumps on my ass. I opened the door, pointed to the dead wasp on the floor and said “that was in my pants.” Then I flushed it down the toilet and tried to act normally for the rest of the appointment, despite the fact my ass was burning like a motherfucker. It burned and itched for about three days. Benadryl cream helped.

An actual bee sting - a few years ago. I was weeding and grabbed a bee, which stung my hand.

7

It’s been 20 years for me, which is good since I’m also allergic. 20 years of carrying around Epi-pens (and lately Allerjects, which I much more prefer) and I’ve never needed to use it.

I think the long span is part luck and part diligence against putting myself in situations where I can get stung. My wife is my designated bee-killer and sprays nests, I never go barefoot outside, and I put screening under my deck boards. I rarely eat outside in the late summer/fall due to the aggressive food seeking hornets.

That said, it’s also just plain luck as I do drive with the window open, mow the lawn, go into the woods to find my golf ball (which happens much too often), go camping, and any don’t live inside the house 24/7.

8

There was a woman at work years ago who carried an epipen and told everyone that a bee sting could kill her. Over the course of two years she was stung 6 or 7 times at work, necessitating her self administering epinephrine, etc. During that same two year period none of her coworkers were stung. Caused some gossip.

9

I was stung by a yellow jacket two or three years ago. We have a permanent campsite in Southern Ohio and I went down ahead of my husband. After I turned on the water and the propane, I decided to walk across the road and check to see if the Cypress Vine seeds I had planted the month before started to grow. Suddenly a swarm of yellow jackets came up in my face and one of them got me just above my right eyelid. I was doing pretty well the rest of the day, holding a cold beer can against it. But when I got up the next morning, my eye had swollen shut and the whole right side of my face was swollen.

My husband kept calling me “Popeye”. I handed him the camera a couple of times and said, “Go ahead. Take a picture. You know you want to.” But he never did. The swelling went down after a couple of days, but until it did, I looked pretty grotesque!

10

Was you ever bit by a dead bee?

11

Reminds me of the time I saw a guy try to stomp on a Dock Spider that was a little too fast for him - it hopped on his foot and ran up his pants. Never seen a guy hopping up and down and punching himself in the nuts before. :wink: Miraculously, the spider escaped unharmed …

12

Hmm having avoided my ear, my eye and my butt, you guys are making me feel less bad about my sting :slight_smile:

13

30 years ago, was playing volleyball with some friends, went to adjust the net-pole, the little bastard (yellowjacket) was on the pole with his stinger out, got me on the middle finger. Swole up so big and so fast, I couldn’t flip him off.

14

when I was young and stupid - I used to like to kick bees.

Then there came a day when I did that, but was wearing flip flops.

I got a little smarter that day.

Last time I recall getting stung otherwise was when one flew at my face - I swatted at it, got promptly stung in the palm of the hand.

15

I haven’t been stung by a bee in so long I don’t even remember. My almost-16-year-old son has never been stung by a bee, which I find absurd, but for some reason, he has it in his head that he’s allergic to them.

Some commiseration- the summer before 5th grade, I got stung between my toes. I cannot even describe the swelling, the pain, the itching, oh my god I still cringe to remember it. I would lay in bed at night and it would itch so intensely that I would HAVE to scratch it, then it would hurt so bad I could cry. It was horrible. HORRIBLE.

16

My 41-year-old sister is the same. I was stung once, reacted and then carried an epi-pen for years. Recently (in the last five years) I was given allergy tests and showed no allergy.

But she is convinced.

17

I have never been stung by a bee, but I did get stung by a wasp once, on the wrist. It was pissed I was cutting down the honeysuckle vines it had hid its nest in - and of course I didn’t know it was there until too late. Owie. Doesn’t sound nearly as bad as what happened to you all, though. It was only swollen for a short while - not even I day, I don’t think.

I’ll count myself lucky!

18

I am 38 almost 39 and I have never been stung. Not even the four years i spent in India. I actually am undergoing allergy shots so I got tested a couple of years ago. I’d have to pull that document and see if they test for bees etc.

19

I you mean actual bees, my non-sting record is about 40 years or so. If you mean flying stinging things in general, it’s more like 25-30, accounting for one incident with a hornet.

I love bees. I love to watch them at work and take their pictures at very close range and if one gets in the house, I’ll gently scoop her up in my bare hands and usher her out the door with my good wishes. Tried to do that with the aforementioned hornet too. Didn’t go so well.

It was so long since I was last stung (12 years old or so, stepped on one in the grass) that I’d forgotten what it felt like. Couldn’t understand why people made such a fuss over getting stung. If you’re allergic, that’s one thing but if you’re not, what’s the big deal? You get shots from the doctor, what’s the difference?

So the following stories are about how I learned that, yeah, there is a difference after all.

OK, so about four years ago I was petsitting for some friends of my sister. I noticed bees making a beeline for a hole in the wall by their front door. Later in the day, the owners called and I let them know there’s probably a nest in there. OK, they’ll handle it when they get back.

The next day I let the dog out for a run and noticed a bee on the front step, looking like she was not long for the world. I picked her up for a look before I moved her out of the way. Turned out she still had enough strength to sting me and no, it didn’t feel like a doctor’s shot, after all. Lesson learned, or so you would think.

Fast forward about six months. I’m at a park photographing some clematis on a trellis
when I feel something small hit me on the back of the head, and then again and again. Then I notice bees flying past me on either side and going down through some knee-high plantings just ahead of me.

I realized I was standing directly in their flight path and that they were so intent on getting home that they somehow managed not to see me standing in their way. Someone with sense would get the hell out of there, right? Not meeee!

I leaned over as far as I could so I get some pictures of them rising and descending almost vertically through the tunnel they’d made in the plantings. I thought that was cool. Like tiny helicopters. And they went about their business, not giving me any mind.

The next day, I was back. This time I thought it would be neat to get some shots with the flash so it would be easier to see the entrance to their underground hive.

Um, folks. If you take pictures of bees (or wasps, as I now think these were) don’t use the flash. OK? Not a good idea. Nuh uh! It upsets them. And when they’re upset, they do what comes naturally.

Personally, I think I was lucky in only getting four stings. Lesson learned. Again.

Still, I’m not afraid of my buzzy friends. I spent the previous two summers volunteering in an 80-bush-or-so rose garden spending hours squeezing in between the plants and beheading the dying flowers and was never stung once. So maybe the lesson isn’t quite learned yet?

20

I keep bees, so one would think i get stung alot. In truth, I rarely get stung when I am working with them. I have, however, been stung twice in the last month. Once I was mowing grass a little close to the hive. The other time, I bumped corner of the barn with a attachment on my tractor. I have a hive that was evidently touching that wall of the barn.

Please don’t spray for bees if it is not medically necessary. Their populations are already suffering in many areas.