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Author Topic: How many stings does it take to kill an average man?  (Read 35815 times)

Offline FordGuy

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« on: April 13, 2005, 11:34:40 am »
I'm talking the statistically average 5'9'' 175 pound man.  800 stings?  (I have that many bees in the air in the first 5 minutes of working my feral hives.) Does anyone know?  There was another post where one of our members expressed shock that so many people would wear the entire bee suit, mask, gloves, etc.    you only have one life!  I replied as follows:

I have two feral hives that are mean as snot. walk to within 50 meters and 10 of them start head-butting you until you run, arms flailing, screaming like a woman, sustaining various forms of bodily injury as you fall and bounce off the ground, to the amusement of anyone watching from a safe distance.

So yes, I wear suit, face mask, gloves, holy water, rabbit's foot, carry a bible, and wear leather underpants when messing with these hives.

Violacea wrote:
I'm just really surprised at the number of beekeepers that wear bee suits and . . . and . . . GLOVES?! Maybe it's only because I have a few hives? Do bees get more aggressive when there are more colonies? *puzzlement* When I first started I wore long sleeves, but when summer came, that went out the window. Now I just wear a veil, and rubber band my short sleeves and the bottoms of my jeans.

So what do you wear?

Offline Jerrymac

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2005, 11:44:30 am »
I hate wearing a seat belt. Why do I need to wear a seat belt? It sure doesn't help me drive any better. And there are people (some here) that will say I am stupid for not wearing a seat belt.

I don't know how many stings it takes to kill a man. But I know how long it takes to get to a tootsie roll center.
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Offline photokid

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« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2005, 12:33:30 pm »
My friend who is a nurse, and thinks I'm crazy for wearing just a veil, told me the following story:

A man covered almost 100% in bee stings came into the ER suffering from anaphylactic shock. Once recovered, his story was that he was fine, until that last sting. He was remaining calm, driving himself to the ER, when one lone bee in the car got him. After that sting he went into shock.

Maybe he was already headed for shock, and the last bee sting simply coincided with the onset of symptoms. Who knows how many stings it takes, I personally believe it only takes one for a person who's allergic, and for non-allergic people it takes a body full.

Offline Rabbitdog

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2005, 12:36:52 pm »
I have two feral hives that are mean as snot. walk to within 50 meters and 10 of them start head-butting you until you run, arms flailing, screaming like a woman, sustaining various forms of bodily injury as you fall and bounce off the ground, to the amusement of anyone watching from a safe distance.
So yes, I wear suit, face mask, gloves, holy water, rabbit's foot, carry a bible, and wear leather underpants when messing with these hives.


Fordguy, you get an A+ for making me laugh out loud today by the above description of your mean hives! :o  I have been known to mess with the bees a bit w/o any gear and had to abandon ship as you described while my neighbor laughed his head off.  I'm sure I would have the same reaction watching it happen to some other poor soul.
"Born Po, Die Po" ........ just need to feed myself in between!

Offline beemaster

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2005, 01:08:53 pm »
I received over 200 stings when dropping a brood box once - I was in shorts and tee-shirt and they got me EVERYWHERE and ANYWHERE they could. I keep an anaphaxis kit handy all the time and luckily (although I had to did it out of my trunk where a friend couldn't find it) I was able to get a shot in me about 10 miutes after the stings.

I did feel the symptoms of anaphalaxis, but luckily I was doing bee-sting therapy during those days, so I had a good tolerance to stings. I would NOT want to try for any toxic levels, but of course the answer COULD be ONE STING if the wrong guy got stung - but 800 sure sounds tough to handle. Not really sure what the record might be.

ABOUT SEATBELTS....

I know our local CHIEF of POLICE very well and he said that SEATBELTS are "PRIMARILLY" designed to KEEP you in your seat BEHIND the wheel during a crash, so that you can continue to drive with some degree of safety to help reduce an even WORSE accident from occuring. He pointed out, getting dislodged from the driver seat in an accident is the major cause of a multi-victim accident where fatalities are involved.

I was in a severe accident involving JUST my car, follows is a link showing the damage the car took - which doesn't look so bad, but I can not even imagine WHAT a major collision involving multiple cars does to the human body. I do know that the young passenger in the car with me would have been through the window and I would have had the steering wheel THROUGH my chest if we weren't wearing seatbelts.

If THAT car had airbags, I think we BOTH would have been much better off - I had tremendous chest and rib pains from the belt catching me as my car plowed into a tree going from 30mph to 0mph in ZERO seconds. That was a serious reality check.

Here is the link to THAT day...

http://www.beemaster.com/honeybee/july2001.html
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Offline Finsky

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2005, 02:55:58 pm »
I have had 600 stings during 24 hours.

But my sister got 2 stings, and she got a bad allergic reaction. Her respiration was very difficult, temperature rised. His whole body swelled.

My sister is very senstive for mosqitoes, penicillin etc.

Offline firetool

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2005, 04:17:52 pm »
when I went through my Emt class we leared about vehical accidents and what happens in them. If you are not restraned in the vehical. You have farther to travel before impact, so you build up more kenntic energy. If you wear your setbelt you can reduce this amount greatly. Becouse its not just the first impact. Every time your car stricks something there are four more impacts and these are all to your body.First you hit ether your seatbelt or the stiring wheel or the dash.Then your organs hit your chest wall. Then you fall back to a posion of rest and your organs hit again on your back. So you see how a seatbelt would help you out here.

 Plus if you ever get throuwn from the vehical. Our chances of servial go way down. I know there are peaple out there that have storyies to the oppiset of this. But we are talking about the majoirty of the time.

 The only thing I can tell you about the epe pin is make sure to replace them when they go out of date.

Brian

Offline Jay

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2005, 07:58:06 pm »
I believe I read somewhere that it takes an average adult non-alergic person 1200 stings to reach a fatal venom level. I can't remember where I read this though. :shock:
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Offline beemaster

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2005, 08:57:28 pm »
The actual number is ONE STING if in the wrong place  :oops:  Not to make fun of the workerbee in the boxers story I have so often shared, but two stings there and I would have looked for a bus to jump in front of  :cry:
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Offline Agility Mom

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2005, 09:13:38 pm »
I laughed in empathy about the mean feral hives. I had one last year that I finally destroyed because the bees would follow me for long distances and hang around for a very long time to get me later when my defenses were down. Got my innocent husband a couple of times, too, who had the misfortune to walk out the door of the house while these "beasts" were still looking for blood.
After opening up the hive, we couldn't go down in the area that the hives were in for several days or they would immediately come out to seek us out. I finally had it. We wanted our property back so they had to go. Felt sorry but glad, too.
Judy

Offline tejas

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How many stings does it take to kill an average man?
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2005, 11:16:59 pm »
Just watched a show this weekend on Africanized bees and it said 800 stings is the fatal number. It stated they were no more poisonous than regular bees just more aggressive.