![]() The hooks get stuck inside our skin, causing the honeybee’s stinger to get left behind once it flies away. Honeybees lose their stingers because they’re barbed with small “hooks” in them. Additionally, wasps also keep their stingers. ![]() Other bee species, such as bumblebees and carpenter bees, can sting without losing their stinger. In fact, honeybees are the only type of bee that lose their stinger. Not all bees leave their stingers behind. Pain, itching, and swelling should subside within four to six hours for most. ( 5)īefore applying the calamine lotion for a bee sting, remove the stinger first (if applicable) and cleanse the area with soap and water.įrom there, you can apply the lotion and wrap the area in a bandage. “Reapply as needed, minimizing scratching as much as possible.” ( 4)Ĭalamine lotion is good to keep in the medicine cabinet because it can treat other things, such as bug bites, shingles, chickenpox, poison ivy, and hives. Gary Goldenberg, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai. It “helps with the itching and irritation of bites,” says Dr. ( 1, 2)Ĭalamine lotion is safe to use for both children and adults. Calamine lotion is a powerhouse cream because it reduces itching, swelling, and pain – while also helping to prevent infections. The best thing to put in a bee sting is calamine lotion. On average, I treated each sting for two and a half days.03 How Long Does a Bee Sting Last? What Do I Put on a Bee Sting? Once a sting’s symptom score no longer returned to at least 7, I quit testing on that sting area. So if it had been at least five hours since I’d used the last remedy and my symptom score had returned to 7 or higher, then I knew it was time to apply the next remedy. I set my symptom score threshold at 7, the point at which symptoms became so severe that I had trouble concentrating on anything else. However, I used the remedies on an as-needed basis: If a remedy worked so well that the symptoms went away for longer than five hours, then I waited that long to apply the next remedy. On average, I tested two remedies per day on each of the stings, spacing the applications at least five hours apart (a frequency based on the maximum number of times-three or four-you’re supposed to use an antihistamine or anti-itch cream in one 24-hour period). I left the remedies on the sting areas for 25 minutes to 45 minutes (depending on suggested use), then (as gently as possible) cleaned the sting area. ![]() This allowed me to look back at the arc of relief each remedy provided (or failed to provide). I logged a symptom score every half-hour, except while I was sleeping, of course. I kept a running log of my symptoms-pain, swelling, and itching-quantifying the severity on a scale from 0 (asymptomatic) to 10 (severe). The symptoms finally died down after four and a half days, but the experience left me wondering: How exactly are you supposed to treat a bee sting? To find out, I went back for more. Or, if any were effective, I had no way of knowing which had worked. Ice! Tobacco! Benadryl! Butter! Ban Roll-On! I tried a handful but did so in such a haphazard way-sometimes applying two remedies at once-that I gave none of the remedies an opportunity to be effective. ![]() Surprised by the sudden pain, I slapped the bee off my arm, dug the stinger out, and went inside to ask for treatment advice. (Quinn’s decade and a half of beekeeping had desensitized him to the venom.) For most, a sting means aching and swelling accompanied by a maddening itch.Īll of which I had forgotten until this past Fourth of July, when I was stung on the back of my arm. When it comes to bee stings, most of us react somewhere between Smithers on The Simpsons-for whom one sting nearly meant death-and Jon Quinn, a beekeeper I visited recently, who was once stung more than 40 times and still had the wherewithal to count as he extracted the stingers.
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