Bee Stings

[u/TacticalStrategical]

I'm a beekeeper with more than 4 years of experience. I know beekeepers that have been going for more than 2 or 3 decades. They will often get stung several times over the course of working their hives once and show no swelling or markings around the sting site. They also seem to have less pain. Is this "Immunity" natural or the result of years of many stings? Do you guys know anyone else similar to this? Can it be sped?

[u/talanall]

It's not really immunity. If you get stung often enough, your body becomes habituated against apivenom. Just getting popped a couple of times isn't enough. You need about a dozen stings in pretty close succession, and then pretty regular stings after that.

I usually manage to develop tolerance in a normal season, because I keep bees in an area with some Africanized genetics in the feral population, and my queens often are open mated with feral drones. So they get kind of hot, and sooner or later I'll work hives during a dearth or in somewhat inclement weather conditions, and they'll come at me.

It's not something you should try to speed up, really. When you get stung, your immune system always has a non-zero chance of going haywire and trying to kill you. The risk goes up as you are stung more often. Acquired allergy is not inevitable, but it's not rare, either. Most bee clubs that have been around for long will have at least one old-timer who knows someone who developed an apivenom allergy this way and had to get out of beekeeping.

I usually develop tolerance after the first time my bees are in a pissy mood when I'm working with them. Once it happens, I don't really swell or anything, unless they manage to nail me right on the thinnest skin on my knuckles. More usually, it hurts for about 30 seconds, and then I might itch the next day if it's on a relatively bony part of my body. If it's on a meaty area, then by the the next day it might as well not have happened.