On Tue, 24 Sep 1996, Allen Dick wrote: > > When people say, "But the bees get to know you" in reference to the > number of stings I receive. I answer, "I certainly hope not". Think > about it... On Saturday I was out at my lone hive that I got in June and it's still going like gangbusters in NE PA (well it's cold this week so maybe they've slowed down). The hive is at a friend's house that ahs 9 acres of field and woods, *TONS* of goldenrod, asters and mustard, all being worked. I was putting things back together and got stung in the wrist (OUCH!) right by where you take your pulse. I quickly finished up and got out of there. After puting some After Bite(tm) on my sting which proved fairly ineffective. I got a dring of watera dn went back out to a spot about 30 feet to the left of the hive where I could watch the entrance thru the bushes. I was also about three feet under where they were coming over the bushes toward the fields. After about 5 minutes, I caught a bee out of my peripherial vision that was turning around to come back at me. It buzzed my head and chased me all the way back up to the house diving at my head. A little while later I tried a spot about 60 to the front right and got chased again. I have a feeling they knew I was the big smokey, smelling guy who was just digging in their house. About my bite which happened around 2pm on Saturday...I'll toss this up to you for an opinion. I got it on the wrist by where you take your pulse. I generally get a spot about the size of a US dime and it'll itch like crazy for about 5 days, then it's gone. This time it IMMEDIATELY started to swell much bigger and I assumed it was because she hit a vein and I was going to just be a little bruised. Well when I woke up Sunday, my write was swollen to twice the size and was beet red. The swelling started around to the front side of my wrist, and up my arm. By the time I went to the Emergency Room at 6pm, it was about 60% up to my wrist and there were streaks up my arm along a vein at my elbow and on my bicep. We thought blood poisioning, but the Dr. ruled tha tout due to no fever and no pain. My regular antihistamine and ibruprofin didn't seem to do anything, so I was given a steroid to take the sweelling down which it did by the next morning. The Dr's. other theory was that it was a good dose that was strong enough that when my body was moving the poison away from that area, my body was still reacting to it. I had a theory (that the dr. thought was plausable) that I have seasonal allergies and I got some pollen from something I'm allergic to along with the sting. His other theory was that I'm getting sensative to the venom and might take up another hobby or get desensatized. Anyone wanna take a stab at what it was? ****************************************************************************** Dave D. Cawley, Maitre d' | ***ALERT shameless plug ALERT*** The Internet Cafe | Scranton, Pennsylvania | ASK ME FOR A COPY OF WEBPHONE!!! (717) 344-1969 | (or try www.scranton.com/webphone) [log in to unmask] | ****************************************************************************** URL => http://www.scranton.com