“Bees treatment” can mean two very different things: treating a bee sting on your body, or treating honeybee colonies for parasites and disease. Both are common searches, and both have straightforward answers once you know what to do. Here’s a practical guide for each situation.
Bee Sting: What to Do Right Away
Speed matters more than technique. Venom continues flowing through the stinger for up to a minute after a sting, so getting it out fast reduces the amount that enters your skin. The two basic methods are scraping it out or pulling it out, and either one works. Use a fingernail, the edge of a credit card, or anything with a firm straight edge to scrape along the skin at the sting site. Stretching the skin flat around the sting can make removal easier, especially in areas with skin folds.
Once the stinger is out, wash the area with soap and water to remove any lingering venom and reduce infection risk. Take a close look at the wound. If you see a fragment still embedded, use clean tweezers to pull it free, then wash again. Apply ice or a cold pack for 10 to 15 minutes, wait 10 minutes, and reapply if pain continues. Elevating the area also helps reduce swelling by slowing blood flow to the site.
Medications for Bee Sting Reactions
Most bee stings cause localized pain, redness, and swelling that respond well to basic over-the-counter options. Ibuprofen or acetaminophen handles the pain and inflammation. An oral antihistamine can reduce itching and skin-level swelling. For topical relief, hydrocortisone cream or calamine lotion applied up to four times a day eases itching until symptoms clear. Aloe gel is another option for mild itching.
A large local reaction, where swelling extends well beyond the sting site and may cover a significant part of a limb, follows the same treatment approach but takes longer to resolve. These reactions look alarming but are not the same as anaphylaxis.
Recognizing a Severe Allergic Reaction
Anaphylaxis is a whole-body allergic response that can include difficulty breathing, throat tightness, a rapid drop in blood pressure, dizziness, nausea, or hives spreading far from the sting site. It requires an immediate injection of epinephrine, typically delivered through an auto-injector into the outer thigh. A second injection may be needed if symptoms don’t improve, though anything beyond two doses should happen under medical supervision. Call emergency services after the first injection, even if symptoms seem to improve.
People who have experienced a severe allergic reaction to a bee sting are candidates for venom immunotherapy. This involves regular injections of tiny, gradually increasing amounts of venom over a period of two to six months until a maintenance dose is reached. From there, monthly injections continue for at least five years. The treatment is highly protective against future anaphylaxis, and the tolerance it builds can last for years after the course is finished.
Treating Honeybee Colonies: Varroa Mites
For beekeepers, “treatment” almost always starts with Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that feeds on developing bee pupae and adult bees. Left unchecked, Varroa will collapse a colony within one to three years. Treatment options fall into two broad categories: chemical treatments (including organic acids) and non-chemical management.
The two most widely used organic acid treatments are oxalic acid and formic acid. Oxalic acid is typically applied as a solution sprinkled onto bees sitting on top of and between frames. It works best when colonies are broodless, because the acid only kills mites riding on adult bees, not mites hidden inside capped brood cells. Late autumn applications in October through December, when little or no brood remains, can achieve roughly 98% mite kill rates. When applied during the active brood season, efficacy drops considerably, sometimes to 18-47% depending on conditions.
Formic acid has the advantage of penetrating capped brood cells, making it usable during the brood season. A dispenser containing the acid is placed above the brood frames and left to evaporate over 4 to 10 days. Field studies show formic acid killing 71-73% of mites during September and October applications in colonies with brood. Temperature plays a role in how well it works; it evaporates too quickly in extreme heat and too slowly in cold weather.
Synthetic chemical treatments also exist, but historical overreliance on certain products has led to widespread mite resistance, reducing their effectiveness. The EPA oversees registration of all mite treatments used in hives, and beekeepers should confirm that any product they use carries current approval.
Non-Chemical Varroa Management
Many beekeepers combine chemical treatments with mechanical and cultural controls for a more sustainable approach. These methods reduce mite reproduction rather than killing mites directly.
- Drone brood removal: Varroa mites prefer to reproduce in drone (male bee) cells, where the longer development period allows them to produce 2.2 to 2.6 offspring per cell compared to just 1.3 to 1.4 in worker cells. This results in roughly six times more mites in drone cells. Adding drone-sized comb to a hive, letting the queen lay in it, and then removing and freezing the comb before the drones emerge traps and kills large numbers of reproducing mites.
- Brood breaks: Caging the queen for about three weeks forces all existing brood to emerge, pushing every mite out of the protected cells and onto adult bees. At that point, an oxalic acid treatment becomes far more effective because there is nowhere for mites to hide.
- Mite-resistant bee stock: Russian honeybees naturally suppress mite reproduction and show lower brood infestation rates. Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) bees detect and remove mite-infested pupae from their cells. Some strains called “ankle biters” physically attack mites, biting their legs and bodies.
- Screened bottom boards: Replacing a solid hive floor with a screened board means mites that fall off bees drop through to the ground and cannot easily climb back into the colony.
- Powdered sugar dusting: Sprinkling powdered sugar on bees stimulates grooming behavior, causing more mites to be dislodged and fall through screened bottom boards.
Nosema Disease in Honeybees
Nosema is a gut infection caused by a microscopic parasite that shortens bee lifespans and weakens colonies. The only antibiotic approved for nosema control in honeybees has been in use for over 50 years, but it comes with significant limitations. It is toxic to mammals, must be applied carefully to avoid contaminating honey, and degrades over the foraging season. As concentrations decline in the hive, the parasite rebounds. The standard application schedule leaves a gap of six months or more between treatments, which effectively guarantees the infection returns before the next dose. Researchers have found that the more recently identified species of this parasite escapes the drug’s control more easily than the older species it was originally designed to fight.
Because of these limitations, maintaining strong colony nutrition, replacing old comb, and minimizing stress on colonies remain important complementary strategies for managing nosema alongside any chemical treatment.