Folk Remedies for Bee Stings©
Apr 13, 2001
It's the time of year that the bees will begin their activity outside of the hive, and it's also the time of year when stings become a factor to consider in working with your bees. There are a lot of remedies out there for bee stings, some scientific, some "old wives tales", but the concern over stings has been around ever since there have been beekeepers. This week I thought I'd bring you a few of the ones that are my personal favorites, either from the standpoint of workability or just from the standpoint of interesting ideas.
Unfortunately, as I looked up information on the web for some of the more bizarre treatments, the first one I found, as described on the search engine, "Rub a bee sting with three different kinds of weeds and it won't swell ...," took me to a porno site. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. I never knew bee stings were erotic, but then, to each his own, I guess. Anyway, I left it quickly and moved on. The point here is that there are a lot of sites out there that look like one thing and turn out to be something else. Since bees are now the object of this misuse, it might be a good word of caution to pay close attention to who's in the room when you do your research. Probably the strangest cure I found involving bee stings, other than the "porno cure", wasn't a cure for bee stings at all. It was, instead, a cure involving using a bee sting to cure pain. Much to my surprise I found that there's a whole branch of alternative medicine devoted to what is called Apitherapy, and there are over 10,000 practitioners of this form of treatment. Perhaps instead of selling honey, I should begin running a medical clinic and hire my bees as the staff. I'll bet a lot of people could benefit from "sting therapy" and I could win a Nobel Prize in Medicine. Well then... maybe not! Other cures I discovered were such things as "moist snuff"... not my personal favorite. I really can't see myself covered with have chewed Skoal. Wet tobacco (cigarette butts) were another cure I found listed, as was a mixture of Ivory soap and spit. Why is it that everything these "old timer's" recommend for a sting has to be mixed in someone's mouth? Another "mouth cure" is having your dog lick the sting area. Again I ask, why does saliva have to be included in a bee sting cure?
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