The Lancet is a medical journal on the net(see address below) I'm no expert
but it seems to me the hive tool is still your best bet for removing
stingers. Comments...
 
http://www.thelancet.com/User/vol348no9023/press/index.html#REMOVINGBEE
>
>> REMOVING BEE STINGS: SPEED MATTERS, METHOD DOESN'T (pp 301-02)
>>
>> If you are stung by a bee, get the sting out of your skin as quickly
>> as possible, no matter how. That is the practical message reached by
>> two Californian scientists who describe stinging themselves with bees
>> in the interest of science in The Lancet this week.
>>
>> Kirk Visscher and Richard Vetter, who study insects at the University
>> of California, Riverside, questioned whether the conventional advice
>> to scrape the sting apparatus out the skin, perhaps with a knife blade
>> or credit card, is sound. Or, they postulated, should you pinch the
>> sting out with fingers or forceps? "Volunteers me and me" was the
>> order of the day.
>>
>> With a lucky (or wise) medical colleague, Scott Camazine from
>> Pennsylvania State University, as observer only, Visscher and Vetter
>> drew up their shirtsleeves and "collected a worker honey bee as she
>> flew from her hive, grasped her by the wings, and pressed her against
>> the skin" until they were stung, twenty times in all in each
>> volunteer. Two seconds later, the stingees scraped the sting off with
>> a credit card or pinched it out with their thumb and forefinger.
>> Camazine measured the size of the weals that appeared ten minutes
>> later. There was no difference in the size of the weal after scraping
>> or pinching: means of 80 and 74 mm2, respectively.
>>
>> Visscher did other self-experiments, involving a total of fifty
>> forearm stings. The sting was left in for between half and eight
>> seconds, and Camazine measured the weals ten minutes later. The mean
>> weal size increased the longer the sting was left in, from just over
>> 60 to about 82 mm2, which is why fast removal is a good idea.
>>
>> Bee stings are painful and sometimes fatal. About 17 people die each
>> year in the USA after being stung by bees. When the honey bee stings,
>> the sting imbeds in the skin along with a venom sac, a nerve cell,
>> some muscles, and the end of the bee's abdomen. Barbs on the sting
>> itself work deeper into the flesh as the muscles contract. The
>> contractions also pump venom from the sac via a valve and piston. The
>> longer the sting is in, the more venom is released. Hence the advice
>> from the researchers to get the sting out as quickly as possible.
>>
>> Bees also release an alarm chemical when they sting that attracts
>> other bees to come and sting you. If you are stung by an Africanised
>> bee (a cross-breed noted for its aggression, and sweeping northward in
>> the Americas), the researchers modify their advice. Run away fast,
>> they say, before worrying about removing any stings.
>>
>> Contact: Dr P Kirk Visscher, Department of Entomology, University of
>> California, Riverside, California, USA, tel +1 909 787 3973
>>
>> Please mention The Lancet as the source of this material
 
God Bless,
Kelley Rosenlund  [log in to unmask]
Gainesville, Florida, U.S.A., Phone:352-378-7510
200 hives, 1 year in beekeeping.