EEMEDIES FOR THE STING OF A EEB. 879 



lay. The immediate extraction of the sting, will be found, 

 even if nothing more is done, much more efficacious than 

 any remedy that can be applied, after it has been allowed 

 to remain and discharge all its venom into the wound. 



It may be some comfort to those who are anxious to culti- 

 vate bees, to know that after a while the poison will produce 

 less and less effect upon their system. When I first became 

 interested in bees, a sling was quite a formidable thing, the 

 pain often being very intense, and the wound swelling so as 

 sometimes to obstruct my sight. At present, the pain is usu- 

 ally slight, and if I can only succeed in quickly extracting the 

 sting, no unpleasant consequences ensue, even if no reme- 

 dies are used. Huish speaks of seeing the bald head of 

 Bonner, a celebrated practical Apiarian, lined with bee 

 stiiigs which seemed to produce upon him no unpleasant 

 effects. Like Mithridates, king of Pontus, he seemed al- 

 most to thrive upon poison itself ! 



I have met with a highly amusing remedy very gravely 

 propounded by an old English Apiarian. I mention it more 

 as a matter of curiosity, than because I imagine that any of 

 my readers will be likely to make trial of it. Fie says, let 

 the person who has been stung, catch as speedily as possi- 

 ble, another bee, and make it sting on the same spot ! It 

 requires some courage even in an enthusiastic disciple of 

 Huber, to venture upon such a singular homeopathic remedy ; 

 but as this old writer had previously stated that the oftener 

 a person was stung, the less he suffered from the venom, and 

 as I had proved, in my own experience, the truth of this 

 assertion, I determined to make trial of his remedy. T al- 

 lowed a bee to sting me upon the finger and suffered the 

 sting to remain until it had discharged all its venom. I then 

 compelled another bee to insert its sting as near as possible 

 in the same spot. I used no remedies of any kind, and had 



