The Proper Way to Remove a Bee Sting

I must say that I already knew the proper way to remove a bee sting. If you are ever stung by a bee and the stinger is still left in your skin, the proper way to remove it is just to scratch it off as soon as you possibly can. Why? because generally when the stinger is left in your skin, the venom sac is still attached to the stinger and the sting apparatus will continue to pulse venom into your skin (hence the ASAP removal of the sting is very much to your benefit). Also, if you try to grab the stinger and pull it out, you essentially squeeze a whole bunch of venom into the sting area as you squeeze to lift out the stinger. Well, all of this information did absolutely nothing in preventing me from removing my most recent sting the incorrect way. Maybe bee venom dampers some of our brain processing power? Probably not, most likely, the sudden pain of the sting, the view of the stinger protruding like a sliver, and, viola! the brain went to the most familiar movement program: that of removing a small, sharp, protruding object from skin via the pinch-remove method. Hopefully, this current sting helps me to implement the correct sting removal method into my motor program repertoire -- scratch as quickly and crazily as possible till stinger is removed-- then stop scratching.

I also need to admit that as a kid, when I was stung by a bee I felt a sick satisfaction that at least the perpetrator suffered the ultimate punishment: death. A classic comic of this is from the buttersafe comic strip shown below. Buttersafe Comics: Serving the Queen.


However, now, when I'm stung I feel a small pinge of sadness that one of my bees just died by stinging me: what a waste!

So, just to hammer home the lesson that is being throbbingly repeated in my right hand: the proper way to remove a bee sting is scratchedy-scratch!