Brigid O'Donnell of Culdaff in Donegal wrote asking about bee and wasp stings. General opinion, from reading here and there, is that if you don't interfere with them - go after them with a rolled newspaper - they will leave you alone. Close to their nests or colonies, wasps - may be more sensitive, and if you turn over a wasps' nest, you are in trouble. Remember the enormous good both do in pollinating, as in orchards. Do not apple growers encourage bee keepers to settle hives among their trees. Maybe pay for them. So learn to live with these stripey, buzzing creatures, and respect them. The BBC's Wild Life magazine for August has an article on all this. Particularly urging us not to interfere unduly and to respect them. The writer, Nick Baker tells us that only the females carry a sting, wasps and bees. The most potent jab is from the honey bee, its venom being ten times as powerful as the wasps. The bee's sting has, apparently, two serrated lancets which it may plant so deeply in you that it stays in the body, rupturing the insect's tissues and killing it. But the wasp's sting is smooth as well as carrying less venom, and so it can sting more than once. Don't take either sting lightly, the writer urges. With one, the pain may last up to two hours and you may get minor skin irritations and bumps. Multiple stings, say more than fifty, may give you nausea, headache, fever and, in exceptional cases, "neuromuscular damage and kidney failure". But a healthy adult would have to receive hundreds of stings for the dose to be lethal. That's unlikely unless you disturb a nest or hive.
There are, indeed, a few people who have a serious allergy to the venom and could even find it life threatening. The writer instances a sting in the mouth - and you could swallow a bee which had landed unseen on the under part of your picnic sandwich. In this case, get a doctor. And one in a hundred thousand people has a rare sensitivity to bee or wasp venom known as anaphylaxis. If someone stung shows signs of faintness, swelling of the neck and face and breathing difficulties, sit them so that they can breathe easily and call an ambulance, advised Nick Baker.
He also advises that bee stings be not just pulled out - more venom could enter the wound. He advises scraping it out with finger nail or knife. Ice on the wound - your packet of frozen peas and antihistamine tablets will help. In general then, unless you go after these stripey things, they'll leave you alone. Don't get too worked up if they buzz you. They have their place in the scheme of things, too.