How to Remove a Bee Stinger

When you're stung by a bee and don't see the stinger, does it mean it's hiding under your skin?

The answer is no. There's no stinger under the skin. If the bee left a stinger behind, you would see it.

Only a few species of bees have barbed stingers that stick to the skin. A few yellow jackets also have small barbs on their stingers, but they're not big enough to catch in the skin. Different species of bees and wasps are going to have differently sized stingers.

The bees with a sharply barbed stinger, those that leave a venom sac and stinger behind, are only female worker honeybees. These are the bees that we think of when we consider how to take the stinger out.

There's some controversy surrounding the best method for removing a bee stinger. Some say it needs to be scraped out to avoid squeezing more venom into the skin. Others say just grab and pull. You probably don't care about the controversy so much and just want to know the best way to remove it.

There's no evidence that one way of removing a bee stinger is better than another. There is only one published study that looks at the issue. It compares the difference in reactions between bee stingers that were removed by pulling and bee stingers that were scraped off. It's not a great study because it was a very small number of stings being compared, but it concluded that there isn't a significant difference.

In that study, the only thing that mattered was time. Pinching the stinger and pulling it out didn't cause more of a reaction than scraping it off with a credit card. What did cause a bigger reaction was leaving the stinger in the skin longer.

The moral of the story is to do what animals do: Get the stinger out! When animals get stung, they don't reach into their wallets for their library card to scrape out the stinger. They bite it off or rub up against a tree or scratch with their paws. Animals instinctively know that if it hurts it needs to go, the sooner the better.

Unfortunately for most people who are allergic to bee stings, they only find out by getting stung. If you're stung by a bee and the bump (called a weal) swells up large and turns red, watch for redness and swelling spreading out away from the weal. Spreading, swelling, or fever (meaning it feels hot) can be signs of infection or allergy.

Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening medical emergency that requires immediate medical treatment.

If you know you are allergic to bee stings, you should be carrying epinephrine, a form of adrenaline used to treat severe anaphylaxis. If you're not the one stung and happen to be carrying an epinephrine auto-injector, help the patient use the auto-injector as soon as they begin to recognize the symptoms of anaphylaxis.

People who are allergic to bee stings will most likely be allergic to all bee species. Treat all bee stings the same: You don't have to worry about removing a stinger if you don't see one. The way that stingers and venom sacs are shaped leads to the fact that it is really hard to get a stinger under the skin.

In the unlikely case that part or all of a stinger has become lodged underneath the skin, it will probably work its way out over a few days much like a splinter. If the swelling doesn't go down after a couple of days, you may need to see a doctor to rule out or confirm a possible infection.

In most cases, although it may cause panic, a bee sting that leaves a stinger in your skin is no big issue. Simply get rid of it—how you do it doesn't matter, just that you do it quickly.

If you are allergic to bee stings, make sure to see a doctor right away if you think there is a stinger still in the skin. It's the exception to the rule.