Take a Benadryl, scrape (don’t pull, pinch out) the stinger, put tobacco on the sting site.
Discussion
Thanks for the expert advice. What happens if I don't have Benadryl or tobacco and don't do anything? It will just be uncomfortable, right? I can hack it.
It will itch, swell, inflame and irritate, but yes, you can hack it, unless, God forbid, you’re anaphylactic. Do you have any honey on hand? A dab (covered with a bandage to keep it from getting all over other surfaces etc) on the sting site may help draw out the pain. Use a credit card or something similar to scrape the stinger off the site. There’s another trick (I forget what) to relate that helps…
When I picked the thistle out of my leg... oh, that's a bee... the stinger somehow came out. I might even have squeezed the venom into me because I thought it was a prickly leaf of some kind before I noticed it was a bee.
10 minutes it in was really "stinging", but right now I can't even feel where it was.
It’s the itching that “bugs” me most. Here’s a fun one, my favorite beekeeper left his fly open in the beeyard one day. Got stung on the, um, business-end (if you get my meaning). One would think the pain would be unbearable, but it was the itching and swelling that was the worst.