The prevention of bee stings can be achieved by teaching the child to:
a. Avoid food that is discarded in outside garbage cans.
b. Avoid gardens (because flowers attract bees and vines conceal their nests).
c. Avoid clothes with bright, flowery prints, for they, too, attract bees.
d. Wear shoes when outdoors.
e. Take vitamin Bl during the summer (it gives an odor to the body which bees avoid).
Children who are known to be allergic to bees should be desensitized with a mixture of bee, wasp, hornet, and yellow jacket antigens
Other insects such as the ant, mosquito, bedbug, flea, spider, tick, mite, and scorpion may cause allergic reactions. They can be avoided with house screens, or discouraged with repellents. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D.C., is ready to give advice on the eradication of any one of these insects.
The eradication of bee hives from an area has to be done by a professional exterminator who should inspect the premises at weekly intervals during the spring and summer to detect budding hives. Wasps build hives in almost any protected place, and their nests can be destroyed by hosing them or knocking them down with a stick or broom handle. Spraying tie area with an insecticide discourages them from rebuilding in the same place. Yellow jackets build hives in the ground and emerge through a small hole which should be marked, it dust (after all the insects have returned for tie night), gasoline, which need not be lighted, should be poured down the hole. Hornets build nests in the branches of tall shrubs or trees.
Allergic children going to camp should carry an emergency kit containing 10 mg. Isuprel tablets, an adrenalin aerosol (for inhalation), a tourniquet, a pair of tweezers (for the removal of the stinger and venom sac), and an antiseptic towel.
The child should be taught to immediately remove the bee stinger and its sac with the tweezers (particularly in a sting by a honey bee, instant removal of the stinger and sac may help prevent the poison from being absorbed into the blood); to suck one tablet of Isuprel under the tongue; to use the adrenalin inhaler if there is difficulty in breathing; to apply a tourniquet on the arm above the sting site; to clean the sting site with an antiseptic towel; to apply a cold pack to the sting area; to take an antihistamine by mouth; and to contact the nearest doctor or hospital as soon as possible.
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