Bees 2010...

Mmm I would be spraying some anti histamine on and maybe taking some orally as well.

I was just going to comment that the you lot seem to be missing a trick. A friend had a swarm of bees settle in her garden a couple of days ago; she rang round the local beekeepers and they wanted to be paid 15-75 pounds to come and "remove" them for her. I thought someone would gratefully come and take them for free ...

But then again, looking at that photo, perhaps I can see their point of view ... Ouch.

I agree with CW, make sure someone is keeping an eye on you Billy. It must be so painful. Look after yourself.

With that amount of swelling & with it still coming on personally I would have been elsewhere, with the people in white coats...

Take it easy Billy!!!

Doctor Doctor, I have a bottom where my eye used to be!
Ah! You have things arse about face.

Eyelashes a distant memory now, although know they are in there somewhere because they are irritating my eyeball. Skin very taut. I have not posted pictures of my chest but I now have two quite large breast, one actually on my right breast and the other centrally just below my throat where once my Adam's apple ended.

The good news is that the swellings all seem to have reached their maximum point and to be coming down the other side now. Today is not nearly as bad as it was last night, so I take that as a sign the drugs are working.

Good job I am not allergic to bees or I would not be writing this.

Glad things are improving Billy.

Oh Billy you poor thing! Am so glad it seems to be improving a bit, though.....

Eeeek! Not good - but as the others have said glad it's getting better. My family are requesting updates on your health!
Will you have to be careful in the future about adverse reactions to stings?

I will be careful in future not to get swarmed by bees, that's for certain.

It was touch and go as to whether I was going to go back kick their stripey asses. They who live in house of wood and wax should not sting man who has big blowtorch.

Cooler head has now prevailed however.

No, this was not an allergic reaction and should not be sufficient to make me allergic. I hope.

In retrospect i should have used the brushcutter to fight the things off. Would have at least looked epic and couldn't have been any less effective than the policy of running around screaming and beating myself about the head and occasionally throwing myself onto the floor to thrash around. I think I had confused 'being swarmed by bees' with 'being on fire'.

Still, could have been much worse.

I ran my hand hoe into a nest of some sort of ground nesting wasp at the allotment the other year. They were not best pleased. I thought afterwards that I must have looked like something from a cartoon running around swatting things out of my hair and trying to get them out of my T-shirt ! Thankfully I got away much more lightly than Billy.

Now you seem to be over the worst, does it give you any warm feeling that the r sole that toppled your hive the other week could be having to deal with something similar...

I did think of that actually Spar. And yes it did make me chuckle. That was the 'angry' hive they disturbed, too.

Oh silly Billy! How about reducing the size of the photos so they do not put other people off from looking at this thread...they are very unpleasant and we can leave that close an image to you wife!

Also for the sake of the forum, obviously this is not a "normal" reaction to bee stings and needs immediate attention. It is probably anaphylaxis and therefore the next time could be even more serious.

Also seeing as this the bees thread - the bees were just being bees and were protecting themselves against something very unpleasant and threatening - I would have thought bee keepers know not to use machines like that near hives.

Zoe wrote:the bees were just being bees and were protecting themselves against something very unpleasant and threatening

Steady on Zoe, maybe a bit outlandish, but I don't think Billy looks that bad

Zoe wrote:

Also for the sake of the forum, obviously this is not a "normal" reaction to bee stings and needs immediate attention. It is probably anaphylaxis and therefore the next time could be even more serious.

In what way is that obvious, Zoe? That is certainly not the opinion of the Doctors I saw. If it was anaphylaxis I would be dead. Your experience of multiple beestings to the face may be different but I assure stings to the eye and throat will normally swell like that on anyone.

I realise you have a book about natural beekeeping but perhaps it does not cover such topics as using machinery near hives. under normal circumstances it would be quite acceptable to strim right around the hives without them reacting aggressively. In this instance I was a good 150 yards away, which should not have provoked them in any way. This was a freak incident, as I think I made clear. But it is something that happens and bees can be dangerous creatures. There was a case in the news here recently of a beekeeper of many years who was killed by his bees. I see no reason to downplay the truth. I would say for the sake of the forum it is very unwise to suggest that this is an abnormal reaction unless you have specialist medical knowledge in this field.

You may well find, the longer you keep bees, that they are never entirely predictable. Even beekeepers I know who have had bees for 50 years are regularly astonished by the behaviour of their bees. It is not something you can become expert in just by reading a book.

I thought of Billy today with his 'bee attack'....

I was mowing about 150 meters away from my bee hive and was suddenly in the middle of a swarm of bad tempered yellow and black buzzy things! I had to leg it and let them attack the still running lawn mower. Luckily the mower got the attention and I escaped unharmed. Funny though, these were wasps and not bees!

I had mowed over a large wasps nest in the long grass. I am glad they did not get me as I swell up when stung by wasps (though not when stung by bees).

Wasps nest now cooked!

Well I shall now add myself to the been silly and been stung on the face by bees!

All quiet around the hive, and I'd been past it to the one of the compost bins (they need moving!!!) to empty the chicken house cleanings so I decided to have a quick look around the outside of the hive to check out the number of dead bees (don't ask me why!) Next thing I know I'm running back in the house with chin and lip on fire! Scraped out the stings, smothered in anti-histamine cream and downed an anti-histamine tablet.

Just having a cuppa and a medicinal brandy to get over it.

No-one likes a smart arse, especially bees!!!

Hope you get better soon!

Lady Spar got stung by something (lost it's sting so bee?) when we were walking down a street, and it sort of aimed its bum at her neck and flew! We were just walking, and it just came!

I have never been stung before (touch wood) so cannot empathise, but I do sympathise.

Oooh poor AJB! Hope it doesn't swell too much

And hope the same for Lady S, Flute.

Ouch! Hope the pain's going.

I fear it may well swell, Jell. Hydrocortisone is what you need to counteract the swelling.

Medicinal brandy is a good move though.

Poor you.

Compostwoman wrote:Oooh poor AJB! Hope it doesn't swell too much

And hope the same for Lady S, Flute.

It was a while ago, but I have never heard of a bee just flying into someone, completely unprovoked, and stinging them.