University Park, Pa. -- Immediate treatment of bee stings -- one
of the most common insect-caused injuries to humans -- should emphasize
quick removal of the sting, rather than the method by which the sting is
removed, according to entomologists at the University of California, Riverside
and Pennsylvania State University.
Writing in the Aug. 3 issue of The Lancet, an international medical journal
published in Great Britain, the scientists challenge the conventional wisdom
that a sting should be scraped off the skin rather than pinched out. The
way it is removed has no bearing on the amount of bee venom that the sting
injects, according to the scientists.
"We have always been told that pinching a bee sting out of the skin
would cause more venom to be injected," said P. Kirk Visscher, associate
professor of entomology at UCR. "What this study found is that the
method of removal does not affect the quantity of venom received. Even small
time delays do make a difference, though, so what is important is that the
sting be removed as quickly as possible."
The finding goes against conventional advice that bee stings should be scraped
out -- using a knife blade, credit card or fingernail -- and never plucked
out by pinching with tweezers or fingernails. Visscher was skeptical of
this advice because, although the sting remains in the skin and continues
to inject venom, it does so through a valve system in the sting, not through
compression as would occur with pinching.
To test the premise, Visscher and his UCR colleague, research entomologist
Rick Vetter, made bees sting them on their own forearms, and measured the
size of the resulting welts after scraping and pinching the stings out at
various time intervals. Visscher and Scott Camazine, assistant professor
at Pennsylvania State University, also showed that welt size is a good measurement
of envenomization, by measuring the welts from injecting known quantities
of bee venom into th
'"/>
Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psuvm.psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State
6-Aug-1996