What to do for bee stings

A couple nights ago we had a pizza contest party in our back yard. Seventeen adults and as many children swarmed around the table as teams brought out their entries one pizza at a time. The contest began in daylight, but the sun had set before the last of the pizzas were out.
In fact, the last pizza never came out because pandemonium broke out when the kids–who had been romping around the yard all evening–disturbed a yellow jacket nest in the ground.
All of a sudden there were screaming kids everywhere. And there were bees everywhere. Bees up children’s shirts; bees in their hair; bees in the house as we all ran frantically inside trying to escape the swarm.
Parents were beside themselves: how to treat the bee stings?

The Wild Rumpus

Fortunately, it turned out that none of the kids who were stung were allergic to bee stings.
These are the treatments that were used for the non-allergic kids:
Remove the stinger. Everyone knew to do that.
Apply baking soda. All the moms immediately asked for baking soda. Even before anyone asked, I was mixing a paste of baking soda and water.
Apply Benadryl. Before the baking soda treatment was ready, a nurse was already applying Benadryl cream to the yellow jacket stings.
Apply an ice pack. In the crowd there was a homeopathic doctor who asked for ice. Particularly, ice to treat the sting on the little baby. We used it on the worst-hit kids.

Looney Tunes pain killer

Provide Distraction. After all the treatments above were used, the screaming continued. One of the Dads finally stuck Looney Tunes into the DVD player. That DVD turned out to be the best pain killer of all. The kids all sat mesmerized in front of the TV, their bee stings a dull ache in the back of their minds.

Next day it was time to KILL THAT BEE’S NEST!