If you are not allergic (the majority of us are not) but you DO get stung by a bee, look for some plantain – chew it up a bit at the front of your mouth – and then spit the chewed up leaf and saliva on the sting.

What do you do if you or your child or family is stung?

One get into a safe area and away from a hive or outside where more stinging insects can come and attack you.

Two look at the area and if you see the stinger DO NOT SQUEEZE IT OUT since you will squeeze out more venom from the stinger but what you can do is get a tweezer and pull it our or if not available you can attempt to scratch it out with a nail (like if you are out camping and have no tweezers for example).

Three than wash the area out with soap and apply ice if the area is in pain to give the numbing affect to the area and decrease the pain with decreasing the venom from spreading.

If the area is itching apply oatmeal or a antihistamine cream to the area to decrease the itching or maybe even a cool bath.

Most stings will cause a small red bump to the area that got stung.  For most part they can be treated at home depending on the area that was stung (Foot vs EYE for example).  It would also include the reaction the individual has (LOCAL vs SYSTEMIC or even ANAPHYLACTIC=An allergic reaction that needs to be treated immediately or fatal, usually with epinephrine injection.).

Stung in the eye it will get swollen and shut and immediate evaluation from a MD is needed to make sure there is no other injury to the eye or that they didn’t even actually get stung in the eye itself.

If you show hives with DIFFICULTY BREATHING or DIFFICULTY SWALLOWING you NEED TO CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY since this is indicating a ANAPHYLACTIC REACTION most likely that needs treatment ASAP!!  Since this can lead to shock or unconsciousness.

If you have reason to think you may be seriously allergic to bee venom, you should carry an Epipen (further discussed below).

How to determine if your even allergic to stings:

The diagnosis is made by a specialist, an allergist, by interviewing the patient and doing special allergy tests. If someone has had what is described as a systemic reaction, they should have venom skin tests done by an allergist to identify which venoms they are allergic to. The allergist can then recommend, based on the kind of reaction that the patient had, what kind of prevention would be the best idea for that person. For some people, it might be enough to be careful and carry an EpiPen, but for most people with insect skin allergy the best recommendation is to be immunized with venom treatment, because the allergy shots are highly effective to prevent dangerous reactions.  This would all be done after any serious reactions were first taken care of in the ER if you had to call 911.

If you have reason to think you may be seriously allergic to bee venom, you should carry an Epipen (further discussed below).  What it this exactly?  An EpiPen is one kind of injector to deliver epinephrine, also known as adrenaline. It is a spring-loaded injector that makes it easy for somebody to give themselves an emergency injection that can be life-saving when there’s a severe allergic reaction. An EpiPen is useful for someone to carry if they have had a severe allergic reaction in the past. This is true for insect sting allergy and for some food allergies or other causes of anaphylaxis.

Let me point outthat there is no other medicine that can counteract a severe allergic reaction, but sometimes even the EpiPen isn’t enough; so when someone needs to use an EpiPen they should call 911, because they may need intravenous fluids or oxygen or other medicines.  BE SAFE RATHER THAN SORRY!

So let us remember it is coming onto spring with summer around the corner so don’t forger their BACK AGAIN!

References

1-Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how
2-NEWS4JAX.com Published On: May 30 2014 09:38:22 AM EDT

3-http//beestrawbridge.blogspot.com/2013/03/which- bees-sting and which-don’t.html with Phil Chandler of Biobees.

4-Wikipedia-2013 published Bees

5-MedicineNet.com Bee and Wasp Sting 12/11/2013

6-See more at: http://www.about-bees.com/carpenter-bees.html#sthash.NywAhKk2.dpuf

“Bumble bees, hornets, yellow jackets, and wasps are able to sting multiple times, since their stingers are smooth and can be easily withdrawn from the victim’s skin.”

MedicineNet.com 12/11/2013 Bee and Wasp Sting

Honey Bees

Bumble Bees

  Solitary Bees Carpenter Bees

Continuation types of stingers:

2.) Bees

 A.) Honeybees

Honey bees have been around longer than humans; there is fossil evidence from 150 million years ago!Honeybees are highly social insects. Honeybees can contain up to 60,000 bees in its colony at its peak.  Honeybees can fly up to 15 miles an hour.  Worker bees are sexually undeveloped females. They build hives, forage for pollen and nectar for food and circulate air within the hive by beating their wings, among other tasks. The queen’s main job is to lay eggs, though she also directs activity within the hive. Male bees are called drones. In winter months when the hive needs to conserve resources, drones are expelled. Honeybees can only sting once, causing the

bee to die, as the stinger and the venom sack get stuck in the victim’s flesh after use.

Many people are afraid of bees because they think they will be stung by them, but bees are far more interested in going about their business foraging for pollen and nectar than they are in ‘stinging’ human beings. It actually takes a lot to provoke a bee to sting you – and many of our UK bees don’t sting at all.

Honeybees…….

will sting if defending their honey stores or their queen, or if they think you are threatening their life by standing or sitting on them.

Honeybees have a barb at the end of their sting which remains under your skin after they have stung.When a honey bee stings a person, it cannot pull the barbed stinger back out. It leaves behind not only the stinger, but also part of its abdomen and digestive tract, plus muscles and nerves. Honey bees, including killer bees, have barbed stingers that tear off when they try to fly away after stinging, so these bees die after the sting and thus can sting only one time. In this case the stinger and venom sac typically remain embedded in the skin of the victim.This massive abdominal rupture kills the honey bee. Honey bees are the one of the few species of bees to die after stinging.They usually dieright  after they have stung.

It is worth noting that honeybees have a somewhat variable temperament, from extremely docile to quite tetchy. This is down to genetics: certain crosses can be hard to handle, even by experienced beekeepers. The good news is that honeybees almost never sting anyone who is not close to their nest/hive, so don’t worry about being stung whilst gardening or walking through a field.

You are less likely to be stung whilst honeybees are swarmingthan at any other time.

Male honeybees have no sting

If you have reason to think you may be allergic to bee venom, you should carry an Epipen (A PREPARED EPINEPHRINE DOSE WITH A NEEDLE to prevent anaphylactic reaction.)

B.) Bumblebees

Like their relatives the honey bees, bumblebees feed on nectar, using the long hairy tongue (proboscis) to lap up the liquid; the proboscis is folded under the head for flight. Bumblebees gather pollen to feed their young

Theywill only sting if their nest is threatened or if you squeeze them, sit on them or stand on them. They are not naturally aggressive and it takes a lot to provoke them. If they feel threatened by you they will ‘tell’ you. They do this by raising one of their middle legs in the air. When you move away they will put their leg back down again – but if you go closer (and if they are unhappy about this) they will lift another leg in the air. If you go closer still – they will lift two legs up vertically in the air or turn on their back and show you their sting! This is called ‘posturing’ but very rarely leads to them actually stinging you.  If bumblebees DO ever sting, their sting has no barb like the honeybee, so they will not die afterwards 🙂

Male bumblebees do not have a sting.  You can identify the males of some species quite easily by their pale yellow facial hair and little yellow moustaches. Also, male bumblebees are in less hurry than the females when foraging and have thin hairy legs (females have a wide shiny, smooth top corbicula on their back legs and are often carrying pollen)

C.) Solitary bees

There are over 230 species of solitary bee in the UK and it is VERY rare for anyone to be stung by one of these bees. As solitary bees have no honey stores to protect, there is no reason for nature to have provided them with a good defence weapon like the honeybee. The females are equipped with tiny stings but rarely, if ever, do they use them. You would have to be squashing them to provoke them to sting – and even then, the sting is so insignificant that it cannot pierce human skin.

There are just one or two exceptions. Although the effect is not as severe as a honeybee sting, our tiniest species of ground nesting solitary bee, Lasioglossum and Halictus, both have fully functioning stings capable of penetrating human skin.

None of the male solitary bees have stings.

D.)Carpenter Bees

Carpenter bees, also dubbed the ‘wood boring bee’ got their name from their ability to drill through wood and nest inside the hole that they drilled.  These bees are honestly some of the most amazing bees in the world due to the fact that their hole is almost always nearly perfectly the same size: a half of an inch in diameter.  How many insects can make a near perfect circle in a piece of wood?  Not many and that is why the carpenter bee is one of the most interesting bees in the world … next to the honey bee of course!

There are many different ways to tell a carpenter bee from other bees. The adult body length is usually about one half of an inch to about one inch and they are so robust they even resemble the bumble bee a little bit.  The top surface of the abdomen on the carpenter bee is almost bare and it is going to be shiny.  You can tell a male from a female by the color of their face: the male is going to have a yellow face while the female is always going to have a black face.  These bees are usually bare and shiny black, though some have a few little yellow markings on the rear.

Carpenter bees can be pollinators as well, so some people offer them bee-homes in their gardens with pre-drilled wood houses.

You will notice many different signs of carpenter bees if you have an infestation at your home.  For example, you will begin to notice holes in all of your wooden surfaces, as this is where the carpenter bees will make their nest.  This can be in any wood surface anywhere from siding, overhangs, desks, fences and even window frame!  Carpenter bees are definitely bees that you should get rid of and not linger on, the longer you wait to get rid of these bees, the more wood they are going to infest.

If you are looking for a way to stop the carpenter bees from entering your home and getting to your wood, simply treat your wood.  Bare and unpainted wood is definitely something that carpenter bees look for, especially redwood, cedar, cypress and pine.  If you cure your wood and make sure to put down some carpenter bee preventative, you should have absolutely no problems with these bees getting anywhere near your wood.

So as you can see, these bees are not only some of the most annoying bees to homeowners but they are pretty interesting too.  It is not often that you run into an insect that can drill through wood and seeks to make their nest in wood.  Just make sure that you take these few steps in order to prevent these amazing creatures from ruining your wood and you should have no problems with these amazing insects!  Just a quick coat of paint or even just a quick coat of stain will definitely protect your wood from being infested with carpenter bees or any other kind of weather issues.  Just remember that if you do not treat your wood in the spring, you could end up with carpenter bees!

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR PART 3 HOW TO TREAT A STING with KNOWING THE SEVERITY OF THE REACTION & WHAT TO DO!

“Most stings arise because an insect perceives a threat to their colony. Bees and wasps commonly sting because an intruder has neared the hive or nest.”

MEDICINENET.COM 12/11/2013 Bee and Wasp Sting

Spring with summer around the corner have certain insects coming out of hibernation which are little insects with STINGERS and know how to deal with them.

Yes it’s that time of the year again better weather and getting warmer with certain individual insects waking up and popping into our site again that go BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ  Enjoy the  weather but know these insect stingers and what to do.

At least 40 deaths occur each year in the U.S. as a result of serious anaphylactic sting reactions.

A bee sting is strictly a sting from a bee (honey bee, bumblebee, sweat bee, etc.). In the vernacular it can mean a sting of a bee, wasp, hornet, or yellow jacket. Some peoplemay even call the bite of a horse-fly a bee sting. The stings of most of these species can be quite painful, and are therefore keenly avoided by many people.

Bee stings differ from insect bites, and the venom or toxin of stinging insects is quite different. Therefore, the body’s reaction to a bee sting may differ significantly from one species to another.

The most aggressive stinging insects are vespid wasps (including bald-faced hornets and other yellow jackets) but not hornets in general (e.g., the European hornet is less harmful). All of these insects aggressively defend their nests.

In people with insect sting allergy, a bee sting may trigger a dangerous anaphylactic reaction that is potentially deadly. Honey bee stings release pheromones that prompt other nearby bees to attack.

There are over 25,000 species of wasps found throughout the world. Some of the most common wasps include:

• The yellow jacket and hornet, both of which live in groups, or colonies, in temperate climates.
• Yellow jackets, which have black and yellow stripes on the abdomen, form underground nests.
• Hornets are predominantly black with some yellow markings on the head and thorax. Hornets form paper-like nests that are attached to trees, bushes, or buildings.

Certain animals have developed stinging as a form of defense or hunting. Venomous stings can have a local reaction, meaning pain, swelling, redness, itching, and possible oozing around the sting site, or a systemic reaction, meaning with local symptoms plus hives or airway and circulatory problems across the whole body. Local symptoms meaning the reaction to the sting is in one local area and systemic meaning the reaction is generalized throughout the body.

• For starters let us begin with the types of Wasps.

A-Hornets

Hornets are a type of wasp closely related to and resembling yellow jackets, according to National Geographic. While the majority of the approximately 20 species of hornets are found in tropical parts of Asia, these stinging insects can also be found throughout Europe, Africa and North America. Hornets are social insects that live in community hives dominated by queens.They are considered pests and potentially dangerous by many because they aggressively defend their hives by using their stingers. Reacting quickly after disturbing a hornets’ nest will help you prevent excessive stings and potential allergic reactions.

Hornets are a large species of wasp, growing up to 2 1/2-inches in length. Hornets become aggressive when they feel threatened or must defend their nest. Unlike a bee, hornets can sting multiple times, as their stingers are not barbed. A hornet sting delivers venom beneath the skin that causes a painful reaction for up to three days following. You can treat a hornet sting to relieve some of the pain and swelling, making the healing process tolerable.

Hornets are very, very painful. As soon as you are stung by a Hornet a red welt will develop and the throbbing pain will begin. Before trying to treat a Hornet sting be sure you are safely away from the Hornet and nest. A Hornet will sting many times and if you kill a Hornet their Hornet friends back at the nest will come after you too. When a Hornet is killed it releases a scent and other Hornets will come to investigate. If you are allergic to Hornet stings seek emergency medical attention.

B.) Yellow Jackets–Stinging Wasps

Overall, stinging wasps have warning colors, either yellow, brown, to even blue or red. Wasps have pointed abdomens attached to the thorax by a thin waist called a petiole. They build papery nests from wood fibers, very common in the northeast. The colonies that live in these nests are led by one egg-laying queen. The female nest-building workers are the only ones with stingers, which are modified egg laying apparatuses. If threatened, they will gather into a stinging swarm to protect the nest. REMEMBER wasps have the ability to sting repeatedly.

Tune into to Part 2 for learning about BEES.

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