How Not to Get Stung

Bee Stings Can Be Deadly. This information is mostly helpful to novice bee keepers or those just learning about the hobby and harvest of keeping bees on your property.
Two bees - are they getting ready to sting someone out of annoyance?

How to Get to the Honey Combs Safely

In the old days, when collecting wild honey without finesse of any sort, the first blow or intrusion to a hive will entice the bees to will make a loud buzzing – and, if you’re not careful you could have multiple bee stings to show for it.

Whenever you are bee keeping be sure to use a hive
smoker.

A Bee Sting is Unnecessary and Uncommon

In the wild, the white-yellow mass of honeycomb is removed first and in the old days you’d think a person would be covered in bee stings in short order, yet bee stings were uncommon for wild honey collectors.

Once you understand the honey bee this starts to make sense…

In the wild, when a bee hive is assaulted the honey bees act as though the end of the world has come. Like true misers, each one will seizes as much of the golden treasure as
he can carry. Bees are simply too busy collecting their honey to sting! They all fall to their broken hive and gorge themselves with their own honey.

In this condition they are incapable of defense and will not sting unless picked up or handled. In fact they are as harmless as flies.

Dealing with Tame Honey Bees Without Being Stung

Bees are always to be managed with boldness and decisive action near the hive or
skeps. Any half-way measures, any timid poking about, any feeble attempts to reach their honey, are sure to be quickly resented and retaliated against.

The popular notion that bees have a special antipathy toward certain persons and a liking for certain others has only this fact at the bottom of it; they will sting a person who is afraid of them, and they will not sting a person who faces them boldly and has no dread of them.

Bees are like dogs. The way to disarm a vicious dog is to show him you do not fear him; it is his turn to be afraid.

I have never had a dread of bee stings and am seldom stung as a result of this mannerism. One old timer I’ve read about has climbed up into tall trees, chopped honeycombs out of the cavities with an ax and not been stung once. (Never reach blindly into a tree cavity to remove honey though or you are sure to be stung. When you touch the “business end” of a bee, it will sting – even if it is deceased.)

It’s more educational, entertaining and rewarding to become a bee keeper. The honey flavor is similar and your biggest challenge will have less to do with being stung than keeping your hives safe from predators.

What to Do If Stung by A Honey Bee

The honey bee itself carries the antidote to its own poison. The best remedy for any bee sting is honey, and should your hands be smeared with honey before a sting, it is no more painful than the prick of a pin.

Check out the beekeeper’s starter kits in the Country Store!