Now, what really hurts, is horsefly bites. I’ve only ever had one of those, and I want to keep it that way. I’m sure that if I’d had more, I would remember them.
for me (non-allergic) it’s not that bad, at least for honey bees and yellow jackets. it’s just the surprise of sudden pain when one of those irascible pricks decides to administer the arse dagger.
it’s more of a localized, mild burning sensation for a bit, then itchiness a day or so later.
however, there are wasps and ants who are known to have excruciatingly painful stings though I’ve never encountered any. the only wasps I see regularly other than yellowjackets are mud daubers and cicada killers, both of which are solitary wasps and generally don’t get up in your business.
oh yeah, that was my most recent one a couple of months ago. one flew right into my nostril.
The “bee/wasp/hornet” in the thread title reminded me of this no-rhyme limerick:
There once was a man from St. Bees
Who got stung in the neck by a hornet.
When asked, “did it hurt?”
He said “no, it didn’t,
I thought all the time it was a wasp!”
And of course, “Was you ever bit by a dead bee?”
once at a previous job, I found a dead yellowjacket on the ground. out of curiosity I picked it up and set it in the viewer of a microscope we had for inspecting things like solder joints on circuit boards. Despite the fact that it was quite clearly dead, I was shocked to see the very tip of its abdomen flexing around a bit and the stinger occasionally jabbing out. don’t know if it would have still been capable of injecting venom, and didn’t care to find out.
so yes, I guess you can bit by a dead bee.
I’ve never been stung. I’m 48 and grew up in Alaska, so I’ve been bitten by horseflies a couple of times and stung by mosquitos approximately 37,321 times, but never had a bee/hornet/wasp sting.
I got stung by “Killer Bees” a few years ago, when I was mowing the lawn. I probably got nailed around a dozen times. The stings didn’t hurt very much, but HOLY CRAP did they itch after the first day. I thought I might scratch myself raw.
When I called the Bee guy, he asked me to show him where I got stung. I said “I’m not going out there - you’re the guy with the suit! See where the lawnmower is? That’s where I got stung!”
I got stung about 5 times on my ankle and leg three weeks ago by paper wasps. Those stings hurt like a MoFo. As with the bees, they itched tremendously as they were healing, and in this case, my leg below my knee swelled up alarmingly. I still have a scab from those stings.
Two or three times as a child, then not for twenty-five years, when I decided to pull up some blooming hypericum groundcover while wearing only thin gloves.
I was shocked by how much it hurt. Most childhood memories you dismiss as the overreaction of youth, but dang. It HURT.
ETA: on closer examination, pain is a topic. It was some kind of mostly-docile ground-dwelling bee that got me. And it HURT.
I can top that. I’ve only been stung once that I can remember, and it was inside my ear.
I was about 7, goofing around at a lake while the adults were fishing. I felt something fly into my ear. Thinking it was a fly, I put my shoulder to my ear to brush/scare it off. STING. ow ow ow.
It didn’t get my eardrum or anything, just in my ear canal, but holy cow did it hurt. I learned that I’m not allergic, though.
Last time I was stung was about 40 years ago in early childhood (4-6 years of age). I picked up a bee at the bottom of a window sill that I thought was dead but turned out to be just resting. When I was about 16 and realized it had been 10 years since I was last stung, I consciously decided to no longer be afraid of bees (at least until the next time I am stung), and will shoo them away with my bare hand.
Probably a few dozen times; I spend a lot of time outside. When I was young went into anaphylaxis from a couple of yellow jacket stings, and followed that up with allergy resistance treatment (bee venom injected into my arms, twice a week, in increasing doses). Since then I get stung once every other year or so with limited reactions.
I get stung about once a year. I’m allergic but not epi-pen allergic I swell up like its cool though. Last year I got stung on the middle joint of my ring finger and within 30 min I could barely move that finer or the two next to it. It took three days with Benadryl cream to it back to where I could wear my ring.
As far as why I get stung I have no idea. Last year I was just walking the dog along the sidewalk when the bee flew over and stung me.
Once, by a bee, in 42 years (when I was somewhere around 6 years old). Barely remember it. (Grew up and still live in SoCal.)
It’s interesting that some of you report such frequent stings by bees & wasps. I live by a park and have pretty frequent wasp infestations, and they’ve never come at me. I’ve sprayed and knocked down at least 10 or 12 wasps’ nests since I moved here 17 years ago, and I’ve always felt ridiculously over-prepared when I do: long sleeves and pants, bandanna over the face – the little critters have never even landed on me.
Now I feel a bit insulted!
(My best bug bite stories are a tick burrowing into my chest in high school and a mosquito bite [I assume] on my eyelid in junior high. Small beer.)
Three times that I remember, all honeybees. Most recent one was way back in the mid-eighties. I was driving a company pickup out to a rig site in the San Joaquin Valley. It was a pleasant day and I had the window open. An errant bee bounced off the outside rear view mirror, fell onto the seat between my legs and stung the first thing that, er, came to hand. Almost wrecked the damn truck.
Living as I do in Texas, been nailed a few times by fire ants as well, but fortunately not the sort of mass attacks they are known for.
You must have stayed in the city a lot with that few mosquito bites; out at my brother’s cabin, we just called it “Thursday”. 
I was bee stung once as a child. On top of my foot. I had it comin’.
I’m 54, and also never.
You and I seem to be statistical anomalies.
Only once. I was about 7 or 8, playing hide & seek with the neighborhood kids, I leaned against a tree to hide my eyes while they hid and leaned right on a wasp. It stung me on the belly. I honestly don’t remember it being particularly painful.
If you’ve only been stung once, you’ve learned no such thing.
You need at least one initial exposure to become allergic. If you get stung a 2nd time without reaction, then it appears you may not be allergic. If no reaction by the 8th or 9th time, then you can be pretty sure.
And as noted in the epi-pen thread, if you keep getting stung by different stinging insects, you’re reacting to different venom each time. So you need to be stung at least twice by a yellowjacket (or honeybee or wasp or hornet etc) before you run the chance of having an allergic reaction (except some folks have some cross-reactivity to other venoms, further clouding the issue).
No bee or wasp stings.
Two scorpion stings.
I can think of three times. I was deathly afraid of bees, a behavior I absolutely learned from my mother who have a minor fit when she saw a bee. I was 20 when I was stung in the ankle. I said to myself, “Is that all?” and was never afraid again. The second time was when I was walking in open sandals through a clover field and must have angered a bee. Same reaction, “Is that all?” A bit of pain for a couple minutes and then nothing. The third time was a wasp that came from a nest that built into a small hole in the stucco of my house. That hurt like hell. The next thing I did was get some cement patch and seal the fuckers in. Serves them right. I think that’s all.
Of course, I am bitten my mosquitoes, but the bites don’t itch and raise no welt. Basically, I get no reaction at all. When I was a student about 60 years ago, I worked in a lab for 4 years and, during that time, got no mosquito bites at all. Before that they would itch and leave the usual welt. After I stopped working in the lab, I gradually started getting bit again, but without any reaction. I have been trying to breed mosquitoes that won’t bite me by dispatching any that are stupid enough to do so. It hasn’t worked so far, but I keep trying.
Once that I remember. I was about 15, riding my bike, and a wasp (I assume, as no stinger was left behind), got into my shirt. I got to my friend’s house, noticed a bump and a bunch of swelling and redness, but don’t recall it hurting much at all.