Not such a good experiment? Too many variables?

Here is the next update of my bee sting desensitization experiment.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that there are probably too many variables for me to really draw many general conclusions from my experience trying to desensitize myself to honey bee stings, and my sample size is of course too small. For example, do different aged bees have different amounts of or more or less toxic venom depending on their age or level of health? I don’t know the answer to that question. The bees I chose to get stings from this morning were crawling on the ground in front of the hives, so I assumed they are “on their last legs” and would probably die soon, so if I used them to get my stings, I would not be sacrificing the lives of more productive bees. I don’t know how that choice may have affected the result of my experiment. Is their venom just as potent as more active and healthy bees? I don’t know. Guard bees venom might be more potent than nurse bees venom, but I don’t know that either.

Another issue is that just because you try one thing and something does or does not occur does not mean there is necessarily any correlation between the two. Let me give you an example: “I got a bee sting and did not catch a cold, so bee stings protect me from catching colds” does not necessarily follow. There may be no relationship between the two. The same thing goes for if I had caught a cold after getting a bee sting. The cold may be in no way related to the bee sting. On the other hand, they could possibly be related, but there is not enough information here to tell whether they are or not.

All I can say is what I did and what happened, and I can give my opinion as to what I think it means, but it may or may not be a worthwhile or accurate opinion. Having said that, I took a single sting on the back of my left hand and another single sting on the back of my right hand. So far, besides itchiness and some initial pain, there is very little swelling and the reaction in both hands is not so different. If that changes, I will write more about it later. I sure did not get a huge reaction in my right hand like I did last week in my left hand that swelled up so much. That suggests that maybe antigens have built up in my blood and given me some immunity to stings in my right hand even though this was the first time my right hand has been stung this year.

Yesterday evening my left shoulder felt very sore, as if someone had hit me in the shoulder very hard with their fist, but today there is no pain or soreness at all in my left shoulder as if nothing ever happened yesterday. So today I took two stings, and the response to them has been very minimal.

I talked to my friend who has trouble with gout and asked him what had happened to his hand where he was stung on the knuckle yesterday. He told me that his hand did not swell up and the pain from the gout is less today than it was yesterday. He said that the pain in his feet was better too. I don’t want to read too much into this result, but at least he did not have a bad experience. I told him to let me know if he wants to get another sting.

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