It is my theory that this fear is generally inherited by osmosis from one or both parents or possibly a sibling. I have met some people who accidentally stepped on a ground nest or perhaps hit a yellow jacket nest under an eave with a stick and then learned quickly they should have started running much sooner then they did and perhaps even faster as well :-).

A solitary sting does hurt but its pain and long lasting effects are much less then lets say my stupidly slamming my trucks door on my left hand's index finger a month or so ago. Once the pain is gone I am stuck with an ugly mutilated nail for about a year, that being how long it will take the new nail to grow fully into place. Would you believe that this is the second time in two years that I have slammed that same finger in the door of my small pick-up truck ? I didn't believe it either until I realized I would not be able to use that hand until I freed it by reopening the truck door :-) ! Enough of that dumb move, let's get back to being stung by a bee.

A sting does hurt and there is a tendency to swat the bee who is doing the stinging. That is the totally wrong move to make. If it is a honey bee your swat will remove it from where it has stung you, but it leaves behind the poison sac still actively pumping the venom down into your body. If you can get yourself to look closely enough you will see this little sac pumping away all by itself. I really do not know how long it can do this, presumably until all the venom has been pumped down deep under your skin to shortly. In the course of the stinging honey bee being swatted, this poison sac and its stinger is literally ripped out of its abdomen and it will fly off to die. Some other types of bees are capable of multiple stings as their stinger does not have the fish hook like barbs to hold it in your skin.

So, what should be the first step you should take? The honey bee will pull itself away and in effect disembowel itself when it flies off to die. What you should do is use your finger nail or some other stiff sharp surface like that of the edge of a credit card or your driver's license and scrape against the poison sac in one direction only. This will pull the sac out of your skin before it has emptied all of its venom into you. That will help reduce the pain and swelling effects.

You should also walk, don't run, away from where you were when stung. The now dying bee that stung you and the detached stinger are giving off pheromones which enrage bees, so any other bees in the immediate area will sting you too! They believe there must have been good reason for their mate to sting you, they don't know it was only because you stepped on her or swiped at her. The reason for not running is that sudden movements alarm bees and may trigger an attack.

Some people have more severe reactions to the venom the little bugger has sent into your body from increased swelling and pain [ oftentimes dependent upon where you have been stung ], to in much rarer cases death. Yes, death can result in a very small number of instances amongst those who are extremely allergic to bee venom. The venom somehow cause their ability to breathe to restrict so severely that they die from the lack of sufficient oxygen. I am not very medically knowledgeable enough to explain this process.

These unfortunate allergic individuals must spend their lives avoiding bees as best they can. For instance we all know that when we eat an ice cream cone outdoors, especially in the fall, bees will come by looking to partake in the action. It seems that yellow jackets, a very aggressive stinging bee, will come from what seems like miles away long before you get to lick away half of the ice cream. They are like flying sharks.

People who suffer from this allergic reaction should carry an Epipen with them at all times. This is an individually packed needle filled with an antidote that the person can immediately jab into their skin in the area of the sting and it will work immediately to eliminate this breathing restriction. Epipens are obtained by prescription from your Doctor. Beekeepers should also carry one at all times they are working their hives in the event someone nearby who is allergic gets stung by a bee who is annoyed with the beekeeper's actions.

Then of course there is the fearsome African Bee ! Unless you live, or are visiting, in the extreme lower tier of States that stretched from Southern California across the country to Georgia and Florida, you have nothing to fear insofar as African Bees are concerned. They cannot live to the north where there are no flowers blooming in the colder winter.

Some years ago some scientists in Brazil brought some bees over from Africa in the hope of creating a new bee who had the qualities of the gentler bees that most beekeepers raise here in the U.S.A., and the aggressive honey production engaged in by the African Bee. That aspect proved not to work. A worker in the bee yard where they were keeping the African Bees left a protective screen off the entrance of one hive after they finished what they were doing with that hive. These protective screens have openings that permit the passage in and out of the worker honey bees but do allow the larger body of the Queen Bee to pass thru its openings. After the worker left the hive without its protective screen in place, a swarm left the hive with a Queen Bee and thus began the slow spread of the African Bee northward and eventually into the United States.