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Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staff
For most bee stings, home treatment is enough. For more serious reactions, you may need to see your doctor or go to the emergency room. Multiple stings or an allergic reaction can be a medical emergency that requires immediate treatment.
Bee sting first aid
When a bee stings, it jabs a barbed stinger into the skin. Removing the stinger and attached venom sac right away will keep more venom from being released.
- Remove the stinger as soon as you can. Scrape the stinger out with the edge of a credit card, a fingernail, or use a pair of tweezers. Avoid squeezing the attached venom sac, which can release more venom.
- Wash the sting area with soap and water.
- Put a cold pack or a cloth filled with ice on the sting area. This will help reduce swelling.
- Apply hydrocortisone cream or calamine lotion to ease redness, itching or swelling.
- Take an oral antihistamine that contains diphenhydramine if itching or swelling is bothersome (Benadryl, Tylenol Severe Allergy) or chlorpheniramine (Chlor-Trimeton).
- Don't scratch the sting area. This will worsen itching and swelling — and increase your risk of infection.
Emergency treatment for allergic reactions
If you're allergic to bee stings, your doctor will likely prescribe an emergency epinephrine autoinjector (EpiPen, TwinJect). You'll need to carry it with you at all times during seasons when bees are active. An autoinjector is a combined syringe and concealed needle that injects a single dose of medication when pressed against your thigh. Always be sure to replace epinephrine before its expiration date, or it may not work properly.
Be sure you know how to use the autoinjector. Also, make sure the people closest to you know how to administer the drug — if they're with you in an anaphylactic emergency, they could save your life. Medical personnel called in to respond to a severe anaphylactic reaction also may give you an epinephrine injection or another medication.
Allergy shots
If you're diagnosed with a bee sting allergy, your doctor may suggest getting allergy shots (immunotherapy). These shots are generally given on a regular basis for a few years and can reduce or completely eliminate your allergic response to bee venom.
- Felisa WA. What's eating you? Bees, part 1: Characteristics, reactions and management. Cutis. 2007;79:439.
- Joint Task Force on Practice Parameters. The diagnosis and management of anaphylaxis: An updated practice parameter. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2005;115(3)(suppl 2):S483.
- Bee and wasp stings. University of California Davis. UC IPM Online. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7449.html. Accessed Aug. 25, 2008.
- Felisa WA. What's eating you? Bees, part 2: Venom immunotherapy and mastocytosis. Cutis. 2007;80:33.
- Bilo BM, et al. Diagnosis of hymenoptera venom allergy. Allergy. 2005;60:1339-1349.
- Visscher PK, et al. Removing bee stings. The Lancet. 1996;348:301.
- Cyr DL, et al. First aid for bee and insect stings. University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Maine Farm Safety Program. http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/PDFpubs/2345.pdf. Accessed Aug. 25, 2008.
