About 25 years ago I was told that Adolph’s Unflavored Meat Tenderizer would stop the pain and swelling of bee stings .It does for me and the few people I know who have tried it . It turns the pain off instantly, like switching off a light . The next day it itches sort of like a mesquito bite . Works best if applied immediatly but I have found it to work as well even if it takes a minute or two to get to the meat tenderizer . Apparently the active ingredient is papain. The product is a dry powder that needs to be applied as a paste . In an emergency spit will work as well as water and is usually faster to come by. I carry a single contact lens container with the meat tenderizer in it in my pocket 24/7/365 { I’ve been stung in January in Tennessee } . I have seen some meat tenderizers with bromelain listed instead of papain . I don’t know if bromelain works or not.Being chemically similar to papain it might if that is all you can get.
Hope this will help those who are sensitive or simply dislike pain .
Bruce
I usually don’t have problems with stings. After the initial burning sensation it doesn’t bother me any more. Maybe I’ve built up an immunity after being stung so many times.
Any time we got stung while visiting my grandparents in western NC, my grandfather would take some of the chewing tobacco out of his mouth and slap it on the sting. Worked like a charm! The pain would go away, and the swelling would stop. I have no idea why…
I have heard about the Adolf’s working, but I have never used it. Baking soda and water mixed together until it makes a thick paste also works well. There are also some homeopathic creams on the market now that apparently work too.
I can’t imagine using chewing tobacco, Slude…it just sounds icky. But I suppose if it works!
Probably because when you were a kid it grossed you out and made you forget about the pain of the sting. 
Tom
Heh. Even as a kid, it took more than used chewing tobacco to gross me out. Growing up on a farm, you get used to a lot of “gross” stuff. (Although, I still can’t comprehend how anyone can eat liver. Blech.)
I’m immune to most mosquito species, as well. They bite and it hurts for a second and that’s it. No itching or swelling.
And yeah, I grew up getting bitten a LOT, so I think I built up a tolerance.
Every so often I go to a new part of the world and discover that I’m not immune to the mosquitos there. The first time this happened, I came up in these horrible red bumps. I was alarmed. I showed them to my girlfirnd. “Those are mosquito bites, silly” she said scornfully. I felt crushed.
We were always treated with bluing, the little teabag looking pad that used to be used for brightening whites in the laundry. Same application - wet the bag and hold it on the sting for a couple of minutes. I have been stung by wasps several times as an adult (just again the other day by a wasp) and find the pain goes away in a few minutes, and the swelling in a day or two, so I don’t know if the bluing actually did anything or not.
djm
I read an article somewhere where a guy experimented with a lot of remedies after getting bees to deliberately sting him. 
(I hope people with eyeballs that do that aren’t offended. 
or people with pointy red ears) Anyway, he claimed toothpaste worked as well as any folk remedy or commercial product.
Tony
Yeah, think I’ll go slap a beehive and test it out.
On a hike this past spring, one of the guys (who has a PhD in math, no less) saw a round, paper-like object in a bush next to the trail. He stopped, poked the thing with his hiking pole, and asked, “Is that a wasp nest?” As soon as the pissed-off bees started swarming out, he took off running, and somehow managed to avoid getting stung. The poor guy behind him got stung three times.
so, do you still hike with him?
Yeah. But not too close! On that particular occasion I was fortunate enough to have taken a different trail back to the trailhead, so I avoided the whole fiasco.
When I was a little kid I sat on a wasp. My grandfather poured Mackeson’s stout over it. Don’t remember how well it worked, tho’.
Not sure whether Guinness works. Or Murphys. or Mackesons, come to that.
'hope he doesn’t find a cougar… 
It does. The venom is a protein. Papain denatures the protein, rendering it a mere shadow of it’s former self, i.e., nonstinging. Presumably, bromelain does the same thing.
Works really well on jellyfish stings, including larval jellyfish.
Strong, cool tea is good on superficial burns, as in sunburn. It contains tannic acid, which basically tans the skin (tans, like the process that tans leather).
There. Now you know two things which will help you survive a Florida vacation.
Here’s another . . . scented body products, like hand lotion, soap, and nice-smelling sunscreen attract wasps, hornets, and so forth. Go with the ones that don’t smell . . . especially not the ones that smell like fruit. :roll:
Oh yeah, salad dressing…
Heh. Another friend of mine was hiking solo one day. As he was walking along, a deer came running out of the woods above the trail, crossed right in front of him, and hightailed it into the trees below the trail. About 20 feet behind the deer was a cougar, giving chase. My friend decided to turn around and hoof it back to the trailhead, just in case the cougar didn’t catch the deer…