• Question: why do bee stings hurt so much

    Asked by horsesrule123 to Hywel, Joseph, Poonam on 25 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Joseph Cook

      Joseph Cook answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Bee stings are painful because they are acidic. Wasp stings are painful because they are alkaline. You can relieve the pain by bringing the pH closer to neutral – baking soda for a bee, vinegar for a wasp sting.

    • Photo: Dr Hywel Jones

      Dr Hywel Jones answered on 25 Jun 2010:

      Bee stings hurt, that is certainly true, but do they hurt more than wasp stings? or scorpion or jelly fish stings or a nettle sting? How would you work that out do you think (I would not want to volunteer for that experiment!)? Pain is a very difficult thing to measure because it is experienced by different people in different ways.

      Bees leave behind their stinger (barb) in your skin when they sting you and as a result they die so perhaps you should feel sorry for the bee, it really is a last resort defence mechanism.
      Wasp stings, however, are painful because they in inject a chemical into you and they don’t die so they can sting you again and again. Ouch!

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